Shameless Words from Shameless Geeks

An article on Slate recently made the claim that fans make better Star Wars films then the current ones made by Lucas. The article was mostly just basing the claim on the fan made Star Wars film Revelations. His claim does not hold up as well when you start watch some of the other fan made Star Wars films, most are much worse then anything Lucas has made. Still it was interesting to find out that Revelations special effects are on the same level as ILM special effects, yet Revelation’s special effects where all done using off the shelf products.

Valve and Vivendi Universal Games (VU) have setteled their lawsuit out of court. The fight between two was over who had the rights to distribute the game in cyber cafes and VU for delaying the release of Counterstrike for the XBox. According to the know details of the settlement VU will no longer distribute games for Value as the end August and Valve retained exclusive rights to distribute their games to cyber cafes. It is good to see the two companies make nice after a long and nasty fight. My only big question is who is know going to be distributing Half Life 2?

Hold on to your hats folks. Microsoft appears to be extending the hand of friendship to the Open Source community. It would be nice to end, or at least tone down, some of the spiteful talk from both sides, but I have my doubts. These two groups tend to despise each other’s philosophy to the very core. Their flame wars rival the partisanship of Washington DC. Excuse me for being a bit skeptical.

Note that the second half of this article goes into the issue of software patents, which is something that Microsoft has a huge financial stake in. No matter what the so-called “experts” say, when someone is allowed to patent a language operator (IsNot), the system is broken beyond repair. The little tweaks that software patent advocates propose are really just a way to make themselves look more virtuous without actually affecting their bottom line.

I think this is just the “embrace” part of “embrace and extend". The “extend” part is the one that actually hurts.

The return to flight status of the shuttle program has been delayed until late July due to continuing safety concerns. It appears that NASA isn’t convinced that they have sufficiently mitigated the risk, and they are especially concerned that they haven’t done enough to fix the problems that caused the last tragedy.

It’s been over two years since the shuttle was grounded by a tragic accident in 2003. We would all like to see the shuttle program start up again, but it’s hard to find fault with NASA’s caution about astronaut safety. The next window of opportunity is July 13 - 31.

Sony has retired the PS One and will no longer make any new ones. The PS One had one of the longest runs of any console, lasting over 10 years. Do not worry about being able to play your PS One games, 15,000+ PS One games can still be played on the Playstation 2.

Okay, not something related to gaming. But, something definitely odd, peculiar, and what Shamless would think of when trapped inside during a power outage.

Standing Room Only

Quite frankly, I think this article speaks for itself.

Of course, it’ll probably anger 9 outta 10 christians, but I view that as an actual perk. ;P

Sony has announced that PSP will launch on September 1, 2005 in Europe. The PSP will sell for 248 Euros/148 Pounds bundled with some PSP accessories. Anyone have any idea when the Middle East launch date is?

Empire Earth II was released to stores today. Empire Earth was one of the greatest Real Time Strategy games ever. Empire Earth II by all appearances looks like it will be better then Empire Earth. So go forth my mass and smite your opponent with many nukes.

The movie adaptation of the Sci-Fi opus “Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy” hits theaters tonight. The reviews for “Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy” have been mixed, with fans split. For those of you that could careless about reviews, get your towels ready, stick that thumb out and head on down to the local cinema. Just make sure you do not hitch a ride with any Vogon, their poetry alone will kill you.

Hiroshi Yamauchi the president of Nintendo during the 50s-90s has resigned from his position on Nintendo’s board of directors. Yamauchi is staying on as a adviser but Yamauchi will no longer have any direct involvement with Nintendo’s day to day affairs. Yamauchi’s resignation was the final step in long the process of unwinding his involvement with Nintendo’s day to day affairs. The process was started when he resigned as the president of Nintendo two years ago.
Yamauchi is best remember as the man who changed Nintendo from a small playing card company into the powerhouse gaming company it is today. He is the man who had the vision to see that video games where still viable after the crash in the 80s. Thanks to that vision, video games are still alive and do well today.
It is sad to see a titan of the gaming industry leave but life moves on. I will miss Yamauchi outspoken interviews where colorful character came out. The Yamauchi era of gaming is now over, hopefully the new titans of gaming industry will live up to half of what he did.

Yeah, I’m talking about the journalist that wrote the “Girlfriend-Friendly” games that leaknova posted. Now, because this website doesn’t allow a little friendly “reply” button, I’ve decided to unleash my “wrath", so to speak, here. Now, being the daughter of the Shameless geek and the RPG/RTS/Console guru that I am, it will most likely be enjoyable.

But, before you do, as far as I’m concerned, Ctrl-Alt-Delete has provided the perfect comeback, even moreso for our female gamers.

(more…)

The Simpsons will achive the milestone of 350 episodes when this Sunday’s episode broadcasts. The creator of the Simpsons have no idea when Fox will stop broadcasting new Simpsons episodes. Currently the cast and crew of the Simpson is signed thru the 19th season, around the 400th episode.

The new Airbus A380 completed it’s maiden flight in France today in front of a 30,000 onlookers. Once it enters service, it will be the biggest passenger plane in history, capable of carrying 840. Now that’s a big plane.

According to eWEEK, software startups have been recovering from their 5 year funk. This is really good news for us geeks, provided that it isn’t just wishful thinking.

Things are unlikely to return to the levels of the late 90’s, but most of us have to admit that the excesses of those days led to the abysmal job market of the last 4 years. I just want to go back to the days when changing jobs didn’t mean a pay cut, and you didn’t fear getting fired more than the company feared your resignation.

1UP posted a list of girlfriend-friendly games. Most of the games on the list are of the cutesy, cuddly, Hello Kitty variety. I personally feel the list is sexist and does not represent games that girls like. The list should have never been published. Then again a lot of gaming journalists can not accept the fact that a lot of girls enjoy “boy games” like Counterstrike and can kick butt in them.

Empire Earth II shipped today, and is expected to be available in retail stores on Thursday, April 28. I’m already planning to attend a LAN Party featuring EE2 in the near future, so I better get a copy quick, or I’ll end up as cannon fodder (again). Y’all know I’m a fan.

GameDaily.biz has posted a good humor article about eight annoying things to do at E3. Does anyone know where I can get a rising sun headband?

Video game sales rose 22% to 2.2 billion in the first quarter of the year. Normally video games sales in first quarter drop as industry recovers from Christmas. The growth was attributed to the PSP and DS, but consoles not handhelds led the sales. Maybe that was because there was at least one A+++ title for consoles released every week. Kinda proves the point, release a strong game and the sales will come.

At this weekend’s Star Wars Celebration III, George Lucas confirmed rumors of an upcoming Star Wars TV show. Meanwhile, he tried to dispel rumors of an additional movie trilogy, and added other tidbits about theme park rides. He even talked about plans for a new movie in my cousin Indiana’s series. And they call ME shameless.

It’s official. Windows XP 64 started shipping today. There is also a free upgrade program for those who have 32-bit windows installed on a 64-bit machine. I wonder what Microsoft is going to do for those who buy Windows off-the-shelf to install on their home-brew machines? Seems like a bad idea to annoy their most loyal fans.

It seems as though the new dual-core CPU’s from AMD and Intel are causing a little bit of confusion for business software users. Some databases and financial software charge by the CPU core, meaning that some businesses may end up paying twice as much to run a program, even though it isn’t running twice as fast. Interesting problem. Lets see how these vendors get themselves out of this one. Obviously, Open Source doesn’t suffer from this problem.

Games coming out for the week a little less than last but still a lot:

American Civil War: Gettysburg for the PC: now you can relive Picket’s charge in full 3-D graphics and at a budget price.

Area 51 for the XBox and Playstation 2: The classic arcade shooter remade into a FPS with lots of alien killing action. Preorder it and get a free copy of Midway Tresures 2 for free.

Cossacks II: Napoleonic Wars for the PC: Another turn based game for all you Napoleonic buffs that looks fairly good looking. Lots of armies too, including the Egypt.

Dugeon Lords for the PC: From the mind of D.W. Bradley comes his next action RPG. It is delayed from last week.

Empire Earth II for PC: Sequal to one of Shameless’s favorite RTS. For further infor read his review of the demo.

FIFA Soccer for the PSP: Another soccer game for the PSP.

Finny the Fish and the Seven Waters for the Playstation 2: Play as a fish sent on a varitey of quest to save his home.

Guild Wars for the PC: The next MMORPG from NSoft, the creators of the MMORPG City of Hereos and Linages.

Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: Adventure Game for mobile phones: A cell phone game that allows you to relive the adventures of Arthur Dent. Why oh why can they simple just republish the Infocom text game the best Hitchhiker game ever.

Motorcross Mania 3 for the Playstation 2: Another budget off road racing game.

NBA Street Showdown for the PSP: A much need basketball game for the PSP.

Pac-Pix for the DS: A Pacman game that is reinvisioned for the DS. You still eat dots and Ghost but you control Pacman by drawing him.

Pokémon Emerald for the Gameboy Advance: For the sixth year straight we have another Pokeman game. If I need to explain Pokeman then you then might be at the wrong site. For the rest of you, stop buying these damm Pokeman games.

Predator: Concrete Jungle for the XBox and Playstation 2: 3D person action game that play as the Predator.

Puyo Pop Fever for the DS: Yet another port of the Sega puzzler Puyo Pop, this time for the DS. Connect away.

Rengoku: The Tower of Purgatory for the PSP: Sc-fi action adventure game set in a dark furture with lots of andorid action.

Resident Evil Outbreak 2 for the Playstation 2: Sequal to last year lackluster Resident Evil Outbreak.

Stella Deus: The Gate of Eternity for the Playstation 2: Like clockwork Atlus releases its next strategy RPG. Looks like standard RPG fair.

Virtual Pool: Tournament edition for the XBox: Budget pool game for the XBox.

Pick for this week: Empire Earth II for the PC.

In anticipation of Tuesday’s release of Empire Earth II, our own C O Jones has submitted a review of the EE2 demo. I promise that it will be converted into a review of the full release version ASAP. It will be interesting to see how much of it will have to change.

Update:
You can download the demo here.

CNN posted an article today that email makes you stupid. A British study found people that read email excessively at work suffer an IQ drop worse than smoking marijuana. So when is email madness coming to a theater near us?

I do not know if is this just plan crazy or scary, but some people some came up with an idea to outsource software development work to a boat 20 miles off California. Right now the idea is still in the working stages, but they hope soon to have the ship up and coding away. I do not know if their idea will work but it has some serious flaws. The biggest one is how they can have speed cycles. A night and day shift and close quarters does not speed up the development process. If that logic was correct the software industry would have adopted it long ago. I do not think the people creating the ship have a clue about software development.

A self-described technology writer who squatted domain names for a few likely papal name choices has handed over his .com winners to an obscure charity. He claimed he squatted the domains: “to keep [them] away from pornographers, not grab a domain for some kind of papal superstore.". Hopefully, the charity he donated them to will be just as careful about who ends up with benedictxvi.com.

With the news that Microsoft will soon support Linux virtualization, it appears as if Linux is no longer the leper OS of yesterday. In 4 years, Linux has gone from a “cancer” to a supported guest OS running on a Microsoft platform. Interesting.

So does this mean that all of the OS guys are now friends? Are they going to have joint developer conferences and take each other to lunch? Sorry, didn’t mean for you to injure yourself laughing.

CNET has taken the time to sit down and write a good FAQ explaining what to expect from the upcoming game consoles. The FAQ is one of the best clearinghouses for information on the upcoming consoles.

Microsoft has confirmed a potentially serious flaw in Win2k that could allow execution of arbitrary code on your machine. No word when, or even if, they intend to fix it. Meanwhile, you can turn off the web view feature of Win2k to limit your exposure. Since this feature is enabled by default, you will need to shut it off manually, if you haven’t done so already.

Microsoft’s reaction makes me laugh a bit. They downplayed the flaw as something requiring “significant user interaction", yet they won’t let the OSS guys do the same. When Linux has a security hole that can only be exploited by a trusted, logged in user, they are quick to point to it as critical. I guess we should all remember not to take the advice of a party who has a stake in the outcome.

Sony plans to open an auction site this June that will allow players to buy and sell items from the Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG) Everquest II for real world cash. The new auction site is a total reversal of Sony’s previous efforts to shutdown the gray market in Everquest goods on auction sites like Ebay. Looks Sony finally deiced if you can beat them, join them.

Three MIT grad students recently got a paper accepted for presentation and publication for the Ninth World Multi-Conference on Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics. This normally would not be news but for one small detail, the paper was total gobbledygook. The three grad students created a program that creates professionally sounding but bogus nonsensical academic papers. These fake papers then where submitted to various academic conferences.
The students pulled of this prank not for fun, but instead to prove that a lot of academic conferences are fake. The students main point is that a lot of conferences are nothing more then money generating events for the organizer, resume padders for presenters, and a waste time and money for everyone else. The success of the students does kinda prove this point.
I only wish they had not revealed the prank till after doing the second part of the prank. The planned second part was to present the paper at the conference using a random generated presentation talk.

For those of us who are true geeks, I ran across an early review of the Hitchhiker’s movie by BBC. If you don’t know which movie I’m talking about, Why the heck are you visiting a Geek site?

The review is lukewarm to say the least. In my case, I’ll probably like the movie anyway. I have all of the paperbacks, the hardcover omnibus version, and the TV series on DVD, so you could say I’m a fan.

The rumors about an upcoming Star Wars: Battlefront sequels can end now that Lucas Arts has formally announced the game. The playable Jedi and space battles look extremely interesting. I know that the current version of Battlefront is always a hit at my LAN parties, and Battlefront II looks to continue that trend. Look for the game to be released this Fall.

As expected, AMD announced their dual-core lineup today. As with the Intel announcement last week: blah, blah, blah. I’m glad all of the “Me First” announcements are over, and that there are only a few more “Me Too” releases left.

The one bright spot in this announcement is AMD’s admission that it is holding off on a dual-core FX chips until games can take advantage of the technology. This is in direct opposition to Intel’s launch of a dual-core chip specifically aimed at gamers. Without a doubt, AMD’s approach is far closer to the real world. Early adopters of the dual-core P4EE are likely to find little to no improvement in the performance of games, if they don’t end up with a slight decrease due to slower clock speeds.

As TheRegister.com rightly points out, putting the punishment for recording a movie with a camcorder at parity with manslaughter is not a sane thing to do. The only thing we can really do about it is to make note of the bill’s sponsors and let them know what we think on election day. I would love to know how much it costs to persuade a “civil servant” to completely ignore the rights of constituents and allow them to be treated like this. We all know that P2P is against the law, but so is driving 5 MPH above the speed limit. No sane person wants either to lead to jail time.

Well, maybe not, but at least he has an email address. Funny to think that he will probably get tens of thousands of offers for cheap Viagra. Now that’s what I call “targeted advertising”

3D Realms has revealed that Prey is in development, confirming rumors that it was. The announcement and details on the first person shooter game “Prey” where revealed in post to 3D Realms forums by George Broussard, the president of 3D Realms. According to the post, Prey will be made by Human Head studios and published by Take Two. 3D Realms president George Broussard gave the usually 3D Realms answer of “when its ready” for when Prey will launch. Now if 3D Realms could get its act together and finish Duke Nukem we may have another great year for first person shooters.

Qatar is looking to replace the boy camel racers with robots. The robot racer is still in the prototype stages but plans are in place to replace all racers by 2007. Qatar started looking into robots when it came under more and more under fire for using young boys as racers. The boys where often kidnapped and keep in fairly inhumane conditions. Qatar hopes the robots will end this practice.

Jim Hill Media has posted a review of the new Star Wars action figures from Revenge of the Sith. The new figures look light years better then what I had when I was kid. I just felt they are not as good looking as today’s action figures. Look at the head of Mace Windu does he look like a monkey or Mr. Jackson? There is no excuse for action figures to have that issue with the availability of digital face scanning technology.

Did Comcast have the right to supply RIAA (my favorite group of moguls with questionable honesty) with personal information about an alleged P2Per? Her lawyer says no, and it’s one of the few times you will catch me agreeing with a lawyer. It gets even worse when you find out that they gave the info to a collection agency.

This is an obvious case of extortion and violation of rights. Though file sharing is certainly against the law, there is absolutely no excuse for using a misdemeanor as an excuse for a serious breach of the constitution. Unfortunately, the music industry owns so many politicians that nothing will ever be done about it.

In yet another show of the complete uselessness of the USPTO, Microsoft has been granted a patent for a ” Method and system of providing emergency data” by the USPTO. So, If I read this right, You can now be held in violation of patent law if you implement an emergency database with similar features, or if you create one that is compatible. Thanks to TheRegister.com for pointing this one out.

Nice to know that your government is looking out for you by restricting your ability to find emergency services.

It looks like Server 2k3’s new service pack is causing the same headaches that XP SP2 did. I guess nobody would mind the breakage as much if they had finished fixing all of the back door problems. Oh well, I guess I should stop complaining. Most of the app breakage was likely the fault of lazy application programmers, not Microsoft.

Various security orgs are reporting the existence of some nasty PHP bugs. It is recommended that anyone with a PHP based webserver (like this one) should upgrade ASAP.

A good look at the vulnerabilities shows that they allow a specially-built image file to consume 100% of the server’s resources, thereby creating a DoS attack. Luckily for me, this server doesn’t have an image upload feature, so I’m good for now. It gives me the luxury of waiting for my disty to provide the upgrade via it’s regular upgrade cycle.

According to CNN Great Britain is looking for a new Q. A few weeks ago Britain started advertising for a new new chief executive officer of the Government Communications Centre, the position which Q held in the James Bond movies. If you plan to apply you better hurry, the job listing closes next Tuesday.

Jade Empire came out last week to a lot of hype. Even Shameless Geeks was guilty of hyping it. The hype went into overdrive when the reviews came out a few day before the game came out. When the hype went into overdrive, things changed from “its a good game” into “this is a game of year candidate".
According to game rankings, Jade Empire was the 9th best rated XBox game ever, with an overall score of 92%. Numbers like that would normally make Jade Empire “game of the year” material. When players got their paws on Jade Empire, it’s ratings and hype collapsed.
To make a long story short Jade Empire was never game of the year material, and definitely was not the 9th best XBox game ever. In reality, Jade Empire is just an average RPG.
I was puzzled about how a top rated game could turn out to be just average, So I did something I should have done in the first place and read the reviews. Wow, was I shocked to discover that the reviewers would tear Jade Empire a new one in the review, then give it a high rating. At that moment I lost what little faith I had in reviews scores.
Then along came Inside pulse and restored my faith in game review scores. Inside Pulse had the guts to tell it like it is and give Jade Empire a bad score and a bad review. Kudos to Inside Pulse for being honest, willing to go against the flow and not allowing hype to cloud their judgment. I hope BioWare and Microsoft do not punish them for publishing that review.

There really is a Dork Street in California, and it’s probably not the one you are thinking of. Not much else to say about this one, so just follow the link. Thanks to USATODAY for brightening my afternoon.

If you are looking for Intel’s official press release of the dual-core P4EE, you can find it here. There really isn’t much new in it, except that Intel added a list of companies that are now selling systems with their dual core chips. Funny, as of last week, none of those companies knew when their systems would be available. In fact, all I could find were “Me Too!” press releases telling us of their intention to sell P4EE dual core setups.

The chips are probably just fine. The marketing is getting annoying enough to make me scream. When are these marketing weenies going to get the idea that they have super-saturated the market with half-true claims to the point where the frustration affects people’s opinion of the product?

Microsoft finally got around to releasing a patch to a well-known, well-exploited bug in the Windows Media Digital Rights Management feature that allowed a specially crafted media file to infect a Windows system. This one really should have been fixed quickly. I can’t think of a reasonable excuse why this wasn’t a high priority item, considering the potential for damage.

Microsoft is supplying download links for your convenience. Just scroll to the bottom of the page and choose the appropriate download for your system.

Oddworld studios announced today that is leaving the gaming market. Oddworld studios will now focus on computer animation for television and movies. Lorne Lanning ,the president of Oddworld studios, did not rule out that there will be no more Oddworld games, just none made in house. The plan is now to have an external production company, with a little help from Oddworld studios, to make all the Oddworld games.
Here is what Lanning had to say about why he is changing directions:
“We believe there’s a window that’s open for all-CG feature films and TV,” he explained. “And if we don’t crack it in the next 2-1/2 years, we’re not going to be able to. Our plan is to be a content creation company with someone else bearing the load of the actual production. We’ll stay focused on multimedia content, really solid concepts that would make great games, great TV, great movies.”

I am glad to see Lanning is not outsourcing all the game work to India . I am sad to see that he is leaving the game industry.

EB Games and Gamestop announced today that they are merging to form the largest retail video game store in the world. The merger should pass with no issue since even with the two store combined the market share will still be only 23% of the total video game market. After the merger is completed all EBGames stores will become Gamestop stores. I do not know what to say. EB Games was my favorite game store and I will be sad to see it go.

It appears that Microsoft has decied to show the MTV launch of the next gen XBox in Japan at the same time the US sees it. In addition to Japan getting the special, the Japanese press has been invited to a three hour event built around the MTV special. What is going to occur at the three hour event is unknown at this time. The most likely thing to occur at the event will be a live showing of the next gen XBox. If this happens Japanese will get the first real look at the next gen XBox. The stateside press will have to wait until E3 for a live showing of the next gen XBox.

My score was 75 (mid-level geek) and if I can do that, then you should all get perfect scores! Ha! I’m talkin’ about you, Shameless. >_>

http://www.nerdtests.com/ft_cg.php

Lists are starting to appear of what games will be showed off at E3 this May. Looking over the list I have no idea how I am going to be able to cover everything. Any suggestions on stuff you would like me to cover?

After having a fairly low number of new release this week comes out with a roar. Lots and lots of A list games again this week.

Onto what you came here for, here are the games for this week:

ATV Off road fury: Blazing Trails for the PSP: The popular series ATV Off road moves onto the PSP for you all you off road fans out there.

Close Combat: First to Fight for the PC: Delayed again for another week. To recap Marines, squad action, Marine training tool, and loads of fun for fans of the Marines.

Delta Force: Xtreme for the PC: The hit game from the late 90s revamped with a new graphical look, more maps, and shiny new game engine.

Dungeon Lords for the PC: For all our Japanese fans, new Action RPG game from the guy who made Wizardry. For all our American fans, new action RPG game from the guy who made Wizards & Warriors.

Ford Mustang: The Legend Lives for the XBox and Playstation 2: Budget game with lots and lots of Ford Mustang racing. If you are lover of the Ford Mustang then you will love it and the price. Otherwise it looks like an average racer.

Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: Vogon Planet Destructor for mobile phones: I rarely add Mobile phones games to the release list but Shameless Geeks are huge Hitchhiker fans so any game that use Hitchhiker gets talked about. In this game you pilot a Vogon Planet Destructor with the simple task of destroying five planets.

Hugo: The Evil Mirror for the Game Boy Advance: A good cheap 2D platformer for kids.

Killer 3D Pool for the Game Boy Advance: Pool game what else is there to say.

Laser Squad Nemesis for the PC: Delayed game from the creators of XCom one of the best turn based games.

Pac-Man Pinball Advance for the Game Boy Advance: Delayed pinball game set in the Pacman world.

Polarium for the DS: Puzzle game that uses a theme of light and darkness to solve puzzles. You can also create and share puzzles.

Popeye: Rush for Spinach for the Game Boy Advance: Popeye returns to the consoles in this racing game for the Game Boy.

Psychonauts for XBox and PC: Tim Schafer returns to games with his next bizarre about totally awesome adventure game Psychonauts. Tim Schafer is the mind behind all the great Lucas Arts adventures games ( Monkey Island , Day of the Tentacle, Grim Fandango, Full Throttle) of old days. Yup the ones that fanboys drool over.

Smart Bomb for the PSP: You are a member of an elite bomb squad that defuse complex bombs created by a mad bomber. Defusing the bombs will test all your puzzle solving skills.

Scrabble Blast! for the Game Boy Advance: Delayed Scrabble game from last week.

Stolen for the PC, Playstation 2, and XBox: You play a female thief in this third person stealth action game.

Stronghold 2 for the PC: The next game in the siege-warfare RTS and castle bulding series Stronghold. This time its in full 3D.

Unreal Championship 2: The Liandri Conflict for the XBox: It is the next game in the Unreal series and this time built with XBox Live and XBox built in mind.

WWE WrestleMania 21 for the XBox: Hey it another wrestling game from the WWE.

My pick for this week is: Psychonauts

According to eWEEK, the Mozilla Foundation has released new versions of Mozilla and Firefox that plug a known JavaScript engine flaw as well as a few others. The article akes no mention of an OS-specific vulnerability, so I would advise everyone to upgrade. You can find all of the latest versions of Mozilla products here. Strangely enough, the browser itself usually warns me about updates before I see them online. I have no idea why this time was different.

Toshiba has announced a new flat panel 3D display technology that allows for much greater viewing angles and distances. They claim that objects appear to stand out several centimeters from the panel, even when viewed at a distance of 30cm or an angle of 30 degrees. Can’t wait until game makers can Really make those monsters jump out at you. Thanks to Slashdot for the pointer.

The NPD sales figures for March just came in and the best selling PSP game was Twisted Metal: Head on ( it made $5,034,513 and 127,403 copies sold). The PSP game that made the most money was Need for Speed Underground ( it made $5,973,790 and sold 121,293 copies). The reason that Twisted Metal did not make the most money for a PSP game was it sold for less then Need for Speed. Untold Legends, the game hyped as the best selling PSP for March by other sites, was in third place with $4,078,071 and 103,010 copies sold.

In yet another feat of “Market Engineering", Intel says it will begin shipping dual-core parts this coming Monday. Funny, but I seem to remember reading that they were already shipping. Check references here and here. So… what’s the truth? I trust the publications who put these online, I’ve never known them to intentionally mislead readers. So, who can I believe now?

This whole thing is beginning to annoy me. If you add the whacked-out release announcements to all of the “ME TOO!” market engineering releases by Dell, Alienware, and others, you end up with the geek version of the “Keystone Kops". Maybe the problem is that they have to keep all of those marketing armies employed somehow.

It looks like Doom fans will have to wait a while longer to see the Doom movie. There was no reason given for rescheduling the release from August until October. From what I’ve heard of this movie so far, maybe the cast was too nauseated to continue

NVidia has posted their lates forceware version today. Get a copy here.. I don’t currently have an NVidia card to test it on, so I won’t be posting an opinion. I encourage anyone with first-hand opinions to post them here. Since I am likely to be purchasing one soon, I would be interested myself.

According the TheRegister.com, SCO’s well known business model of demanding payment for free software still doesn’t seem to be working. They are still way in the red, with the Unix licensing bringing in a paltry $70k last quarter. It looks like their best chance of profit is through litigation, and that hasn’t been going very well lately either.

New York Police, working with the FBI, busted a large piracy ring dealing in fake 8-bit Nes consoles today. The pirates also were trying to sell pirated copies of the 8-bit versions of Super Mario Bros, Dunk Hunt, Contra and Donkey Kong. Nintendo claims that this type of piracy cost them millions of dollars a year. I want an explanation from Nintendo on how the heck piracy of a console system and games that they stopped selling 10 years ago can cost them millions of dollars in sales?

An article on Microsoft UK gaming site gamesradar puts to bed rumors that work on XBox games once the XBox 360 (the next generation XBox) hits stores. Microsoft plans to support games for the current XBox hardware until 2007. The article also heats up the rumors that Microsoft plans to make the XBox 360 backwards compatible with the current XBox.

It is official the next gen XBox will be called XBox 360. This is according to some mysterious British source who is privy to Microsoft Marketing documents. The source also claimed: the XBox 360 will have a concave design that hallows in the middle with a platinum white finish. XBox 360 will be able to stand up right and the logo for XBox 360 will be simple round nexus with words 360 written in it. Please mind this all rumor and the real details of the next gen XBox will not be released until May 12th during a MTV special.

Apple computer will ship Tiger, its latest version of Mac OS X, to stores April 29th. The big new features being hyped is the Spotlight and Dashboard. Spotlight is an advance search tool designed to search through pictures, files, and email just like Google search tool does. Dashboard is basically a portal app to weather, sports, airplane schedules, and other info. Neither feature looks that impressive but I guess Apple marketing figures they are.

If I was a judge at this competition, I definitely would have voted for these guys. =P

The following is rated 42, for Geek. Not recommended for the rich, the successful, management, lawyers, or anyone that doesn’t know there was a gaming consol prior to the X-box or Dreamcast. In other words, if you aren’t a geek this isn’t for you.

And if you claim to be a geek yet cannont recognize these themes, then you’ve obviously been outside too long.

… or close enough. The Dell announcement was yesterday, but still suspiciously early. Intel announced today (see previous article) that they were shipping dual-core chips to customers. All of this is just before AMD’s anticipated announcement of a dual-core server chip, which may be just as non-existent as all of the other hardware mentioned here.

Did anyone else notice that there is no availability announcement on the Dell systems? That happens sometimes, but it is an exception to the rule, and is reserved for something that is still in the concept stage. Products that are in the final stages of development usually have, at the very least, a ‘fuzzy’ release date like “next month". Those of us in the engneering biz call concept releases “vaporware", and they are really just a “first-to-market” PR ploy that we should all get over.

It looks like we’re about to get another round of the “release game". Intel has announced that they are shipping
dual core P4EE’s a week before AMD is expected to announce their dual-core Opteron. The problem with the “release game” is that they tend to follow the same trend… Each company tries to one-up the other on releasing technology, causing them to rush the engineering cycle, then they forget to tell you that they can’t supply chips in quantity.

All of the major PC device manufacturers have fallen into this dirty little PR habit, not just Intel. AMD has done it in the past, and we just went through a major round of the same thing with Nvidia and ATI.

Intel may very well be planning to make this a “real” release as opposed to a “one-upsmanship” release, but color me skeptical. Before getting too excited about the prospect of a dual-core machine, I’ll wait until my favorite online store has them in stock.

Microsoft, breaking with tradition, has decided to unveil the next generation XBox on May 12 during an MTV special and not at E3. Microsoft plans to make the unveiling a star-studded affair with lots of sports stars, movie personalities, and a live rock performance by the group Killer. Microsoft sums it up best on why they are breaking with tradition: “It doesn’t make sense to unveil the product behind a closed door, at a trade-only event,” according to Microsoft corporate VP Peter Moore. “We wanted to talk directly to the consumer first.” I guess XBox felt that the game press was not going do a good enough job presenting the XBox to the public.

Shameless Geeks finally got their grubby hands on a PSP and a Nintendo DS and here are my first impressions. The PSP looks better than any sexy device from Apple, that is, until you get your grubby palms on it. The PSP LCD screen quickly turns into a cloudy mess of fingerprints and then the PSP loses all of its beauty. Plan on using the polishing cloth that comes with the PSP a lot. The Nintendo DS looks kinda boxy and not very sexy. It comes with two screens and both attract their share of grime, but not as bad as the PSP.

The user interface for the PS is awful. It is a nightmare to navigate, it has no guide to get from point a to b, and it is just very non-intuitive. It may take you a while to figure out how to get to the main menu from a game. It is not the normal method on all other game systems of simply hitting power. Switching games was just as much fun. If you have to type anything forget it, you have to enter data just like you would on a phone. The Nintendo DS user interface was a piece of cake to use. It brings everything up in the stylus window and you simple click away on what you want. Typing in data on the Nintendo DS was breeze, the DS simply brings up a keyboard and you type away.

The movie, pictures and music features on the PSP were cool. It took forever (and a couple of manual consultations) to figure out how to load movies. Loading movies was a breeze once I found a (not included) USB cable and had the memory card setup correctly. The DS does not have any of these features but it does have the cool picto chat. Picto chat is simple to use and fairly fun to play with, if I could just find someone to chat with.

The big thing about the DS is the touch screen and the stylus to play games. The stylus and touch screen do add a whole level of gameplay. Only a few of the games take advantage of it right now but I look forward to seeing what the developers can do with the stylus and touch pad.

Wireless would be awesome if I could get it work for either system. I tried really hard to connect with the PSP but it would never connect to any wireless networks. The DS appears to not have the ability to connect via wireless over the Internet.

The games on both where okay. I loved “Lumines” for the PSP and “Yoshi Touch and Go” for the DS. The only other game I played for the DS was Super Mario 64 and it was an average game. The other two PSP games I played where: Ridge Racer and Untold Legends and both where alright, nothing special to write about. My favorite game so far for either system has been “Yoshi Touch and Go” for the DS.

The DS did live up to my impression of being a neat, quirky system that is fun to play with. The PSP on the other is over hyped, it is alright but not the greatest thing since sliced bread. Neither title has yet to have a break out game and until that occurs neither is worth the money yet. If I had to be stranded on a desert island with one or the other, I would pick the Nintendo DS. The main reason: at least it has a huge library thanks to its backward compatibility with the Gameboy Advance. I also love “Yoshi Touch and Go".

Francis Ford Coppola is not happy about the upcoming Godfather video game from EA games. Coppola’s main gripe was the misuse of the characters from the Godfather movies. Here is Coppola’s exact quote: “They use the characters everyone knows, and they hire those actors to be there, and only to introduce minor characters. And then for the next hour they shoot and kill each other,". Coppola also claims he had nothing to do with the game and was in fact unaware of it. Thanks to all the hype surrounding it there is a lot of coverage for the Godfather Game. The coverage disagrees with Coppola’s claim that he knew nothing. The creators of the game claim (see Developer interview, 9 minutes into the video) they visited Coppola and talked at great length about the game. The creators also claim to have gained access to Coppola’s private library, from Coppola. To me this sounds like there is more to Coppola’s comments then just the misuse of the characters. Coppola may be after something else.

Another week another batch of games….this week one game finally is not on the list:

Close Combat: First to Fight for the PC: The Marines bring their squad action port and ready to be played on the PC.

Dead to Rights II for the XBox and Playstation 2: Next game in the gritty cop fight on the mean street Dead to Rights franchise.

Jade Empire for the XBox: The next RPG from the mad doctors in Canada. This time the RPG takes place in mythic China with lots of Kung Fu Action. This one may be a game of the year candidate.

Killer 3D Pool for the Gameboy Adavance: Pool game for the Gameboy that allows you play against the CPU or your buddy via the link cable. With a title like Killer you would expect to release fatal electric shocks or something.

Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition for the Playstation 2 and XBox: Satan’s personal studio next street racing game in the Midnight Club series.

MLB for the PSP: PSP baseball action that has been delayed for awhile, ready to come out now.

Pac-Man Pinball Adavance for the Gameboy Adavance: Pacman loses the town on a game of Pinball and now must smoke the ghost in pinball to win back the town.

Scrabble Blast! for the Gameboy Adavance: Word game styled after the popular board game Scrabble.

Still Life for the XBox: Some one has died in Prague in modern times and then some is murder in 1920’s Chicago and somehow they are connected and you have to figure out how.

Tokyo Xtreme Racer Advance for the Gameboy Adavance: Race around Tokyo in some cool souped up cars, as the next in the Tokyo Xtreme Racer series moves to the Gameboy.

Virtual Pool: Tournament Edition for the Playstation 2: A budget Pool game for the Playstation 2.

World Championship Poker for the Nintendo DS: Play lots of different Poker games on DS, hopefully this version has Razz. Razz for you less informed poker players, is a variant where the player with the lowest hand wins. Razz is also one of the hardest forms of Poker to play and the format which I am a champion in.

The game missing because it finally released was Digital Devil Saga and the new release are stating to calm down.

Editorial :
I hate to say this, but I was wrong. I believed that ATI had won the GPU wars, and that I would be sticking with them for a long time. Based on my recent adventures with a 9600 card, their inability to release a fully functional Linux driver, and the lackluster performance of all of their recent XP software, I believe that my next system will not have an ATI card in it.

Don’t take this as a knock on their GPU’s themselves. Those seem to be as competitive as ever. The problem is that I have lost my tolerance for ‘well designed’ technology that is unusable due to poor implementation. I have no idea what happened to ATI. Is it hubris caused by their success in recent years? Did someone steal all of their talent? Have they lost sight of long term goals in favor of short-term stock gains? Only time will tell.

I still have that hell-spawned PowerColor 9600 that I can’t return, and no amount of software is going to fix the power problems. However, I decided to download Catalyst 5.4 to see if they had at least improved their software. I installed the “new” version of the Linux driver, and the new XP driver that includes the control center. All I can say is… Don’t bother.

The “new” Linux driver is really no improvement over the old one. It still generates a Segmentation Fault when you try to run Doom3. That’s about the same status as the last Linux release. Thanks guys, big help. The Control Center on XP installs as normal, reboots as normal, then pops up a notification that says Catalyst Control Center will not be fully operational until SMARTGART has determined your optimal graphics processor settings. Please wait…, which never goes away. Permanently stuck windows, however pretty, don’t make me confident about the rest of the software.

Like I said… Downslide.

For a chance to regain fun time from your youth go to LEDhead Classic Electronic Handheld Game Simulator. Games back then were so much simpler no 1280x1024x32 graphics or 7.1 suround sound. Just a plain LED matix 3x10 or so with a fixed overlay and beeps for sound. Ah fond memories

Migon Game Kit a new kitset that can be used to create a handheld system has been released by a German. The Migon Game Kit is intend to be used by young students to learn basic electronic, programing and soldering skills. When you buy the Migon Game Kit you get an unassembled mass of electronics that you must solder together and once that is done start programing games for it via the include download cable. The games for the Migon Game Kit are fairly primitive since the Migon only has 45 LCDS pixels. The website for Migon Game Kit does games for download including a pong like game, the hello world for gaming systems.

Two weeks after the launch Sony finally confirms that only 500,000 PSP of the million shipped PSPs sold during the first two days of sales. Sony also confirmed it did around $150 million in total PSP sales by the end of the week. Thanks to some quick math from Gamespot that breaks down roughly to about 600,000 total PSP sold in the first week. Not the stellar sellout that was predicted by all the industry pundits. To be honest the main reason Sony failed to sell out the PSP was the lack of marketing. Sony’s marketing department appeared to be too busy marketing the game “God of War” to be bothered to marketing the PSP. Only after the PSP had failed to sell out did ads for the PSP start to appear and the marketing department kick in. The only excuse I can think off for the main reason Sony’s marketing department ignored marketing the PSP was they where taking a wait and see attitude with PSP sales; less they get burned like the time when the PS2 sold out on launch day and Sony had to pull ads for the PS2 at great cost. I think the real excuse for PSP marketing failures was hubris. The only good news for Sony is that the PSP did do better then the Nintendo DS in its first week but only by a 100,000 more units.

Call me shocked but this CNN article about a reporter search for why Cookie Monster giving up cookies, proves the existence of a breed of geek I never seen before “The Sesame Street” geek. I wonder where in the hierarchy of geeks this fits? I also wonder which Sesame Street character would be considered a geek? My money is on Big Bird, but the Count’s love for numbers screams geeks

Rumor has that Microsoft is trying to replicate the success they had marketing Halo 2 with the website ilovebees.com. This time Microsoft may be using the website ourcolony.net to market the next generation XBox. The website ilovebees.com was a form alternate reality games a new game type that requires players to hunt for clues through books, websites, emails, pages, and phone calls.
For more information and how to get started playing the game in ourcolony.net click on this article by Gamespot.

Though ATI’s monthly Catalyst releases are not usually very noteworthy, they have billed this release as the first non-beta for XP-64. In addition, it looks like they updated the Linux driver as well. Now all I need is for Microsoft to release a non-beta XP-64, and I’m all set.

Sony has been granted a patent for a technology that beams sensory info straight into your brain. If this technology catches on, you’ll be able to smell the rotting corpses when you play Doom XIII.

Call me ungeeky, but I’m a little afraid to let anyone in my head like that. Besides, games are addictive enough without the digital equivalent of mainlining.

Business Week has a good article about Stern, the last Pinball manufacturer in the world. Since every other pinball manufacture went under, very few new Pinball machines are made anymore as arcades die off and demand for pinball lessen with each passing year. The sad thing is when Gary Stern dies most likely so will pinball.

Mandrakesoft has announced that they are changing their name to Mandriva, which is billed as a contraction of Mandrakesoft and Conectiva. Apparently, this is a company of math Geeks. It is obviously not a company of marketing geniuses. Any salesman would choke at the prospect of a name so easily warped into “Mandrivel“. The image of Geeks drooling all over their keyboards doesn’t give one a “warm, fuzzy feeling” about the security of an OS. I guess we can forgive them, knowing that English is not their native language.

Hate to make a fellow geek look bad, but this is a geek-oriented site, so I feel compelled to be “Fair and Balanced” (whatever that means). Star Wars geeks have lined up at the wrong theater in advance of the upcoming “Revenge of the Sith” release. There I said it, but I don’t feel any better. Seems like some sort of a betrayal.

I hope that the release is moved to Grauman’s Chinese Theater, and that you all end up looking like prescient geniuses! There, now I feel better.

Atlas Computer Laboratory, Chilton one of the UK’s national computing facilities, back when computers were BIG and EXPENSIVE. Check out the Technology link to see just how big and expensive computers were back then.

The newest installment of CNN’s column “Game Over” has a good overview of what is upcoming for the E3 Expo this May. Some of the highlights include the unveiling of the Playstation 3, the next XBox and the next Nintendo Game console. The column also discussed some of the planned upcoming games like: “Prey” (see earlier posts), the next Tomb Raider (see earlier posts), Quake 4, “Perfect Dark Zero” and Will Wright’s next game “Spore". This years E3 Expo looks to be an action packed show. I just got an email from E3 Expo. If you have not already registered for E3 you better hurry and register on the web. Registration ends Tax Day (April 15).

CNN had a good article about all the hacks available for the PSP one week after the launch of the PSP. Some of the cool hacks are the ability to chat on IRC on PSP, read web comics on the PSP and play programs recorded to your TIVO on your PSP. The other big news that article talked about is the PSP portal sites now up that allow you to surf the web using “Wipeout Pure” and a PSP, no more need for crazy DNS hacks.

3D Realms, creators of Duke Nukem, is rumored to have a demo of “Prey” ready for E3. “Prey” was a highly anticipated FPS in the 90s, before being canceled by 3D Realms so they could focus all their efforts on “Duke Nukem Forever". 3D Realms had no comment on whether, after seven years of work, “Duke Nukem Forever” is finally finished.

Eidos Interactive UK - Eidos News Info page has some hints for the new Lara Croft title, Tomb Raider: Legend.

The West Virginia Public Employees Insurance Agency (PIEA) is testing the effects of Dance Dance Revolution and its impact on weight loss in overweight West Virgina youth. In a six month study PEIA will supply dance pads, Dance Dance Revolution and a console to overweight children and require them to dance on the pad every day. At the end of the six months PIEA will check how much weight was lost. This will achieve the main goal of the study: see if there is a correlation between good health and playing Dance Dance Revolution. PIEA is also donating DDR machines to schools PE and health classes.

With a minimum of fanfare, AMD started shipping Athlon-64 chips equipped with the new Venice core today. Rumors around the net are also mentioning the imminent release of the 4200+ and the FX-57 in the near future. That’s good news for those of us waiting for the current generation of CPU’s to drop in price.

Nvidia has finally released a SLI chipset for Intel systems. I’m not yet sure that SLI is going to go over any better than it did for 3dfx all of those years ago. The motherboards and video cards are expensive, and game builders would be insane to offer games that didn’t still work really well on single GPU systems. Unless Nvidia can come up with a compelling reason to switch to a dual GPU, most of use can’t justify the expense.

Then again, I have been wrong before.

Akihabara News posted an article today about a new mod that makes your PSP waterproof. Leave it up to the Japanese to come up with a way to play with the PSP in the bath tub or while scuba diving.

Several media outlets are reporting that “Untold Legends” is currently the top selling PSP game at EB Games and Gamestop. “Untold Legends” selling out was a bit of shock, it is one of the lower rated PSP games and is not part of a long running franchise. The only thing that could justify “Untold Legends” sales was that it was the only RPG at the PSP launch. Instead of reporting this as fact because a neat little press release said so, Shameless started calling EB Games and Gamestop asking how well “Untold Legends” is selling and if we could get a copy. According to our stores “Untold Legends” did sell well, but not better than most PSP games. “Untold Legends” is sold out from most stores but is still available in large quantiles at a lot of retail locations, not unlike all the other PSP games. On EBGames and Gamestop’s websites “Untold Legends” is still for sale while only one PSP game “Metal Gear Acid” is on backorder on both sites and “Need for Speed: Underground” was 0n backorder on Gamestop’s website. After talking to a lot of shops, the big sellers were “Ridge Racer” and “Metal Gear Acid", this makes more sense, as they are highly rated and come from power house franchises.

NASA is studying the unique microbes found in lakes around the Mexican town of Cuatro Cienegas to create models of what alien life would look like on other planet. Scientist plan to use the models from the lakes to find alien life on other planets by matching a planet’s fingerprint with the fingerprint generated by microbes in the lakes. Hopefully this will finally prove that we are not alone in this vast universe.

And that someone is Fujitsu. They are expected to come out with a 64 CPU version tomorrow. I guess the most remarkable thing about the whole story is that the Itanium ain’t quite dead yet. So how many 64 CPU servers do they need to sell to double Itanium sales for the year? I bet you could count them on your fingers.

SCO finally got around to filing it’s financial paperwork for most of last year. Unfortunately, it still may be too late to keep them from being delisted by Nasdaq. Hard to reconcile the extremely late filing of business paperwork with a company whose main work product is lawsuits. Shouldn’t one of those lawyers have spoken up about the dangers of irritating Nasdaq?

Check out Tom’s Hardware Hard News concerning a mod for Novalogics Joint Operations. This mod is for all of the Geeks/Gamers who have not found that special some one.

Last weeks blog post Are the PSP and DS Worth It? by Shinnite has been converted into a permanent page. If you missed it, or you want to read it again, check it out. It also has the new comment tracker on it, so you can let her know what you think about the submission.

I’m done with the initial coding of a comment tracking script for permanent posts. I wanted to stay true to the concept of keeping PHP out of the permanent pages to keep them compatible with search engine spiders, so the only thing you’ll notice is a “Comments” button at the bottom of the submission. This links to a PHP script that allows you to read all previous comments as well as adding your own.

I have only added the capability to the submissions linked to on the “Gamers” and “Shameless” pages. Check it out when you get the chance. If things work out, I’ll polish up the page formatting some, then add the comments to all of the submissions.

Just to show you all that ShamelessGeeks is not making stuff up when we attack the media for irresponsible reporting about games, here is an article from PBS that explains all of the myths that the media report as fact. Thanks go out to Gamers Alliance for this one. The Gamers Alliance was created in response to Jack Thompson’s bad behavior toward gaming and all the misinformation he loves to spread.

Another week and another stack of must buys, this week was slow compared to the last two but still this amount of games is abnormal for April.

Archer Maclean’s Mercury for the PSP: A puzzle game for the PSP where you control a drop of mercury as you guide it through a maze. Sounds a lot like Super Monkey Ball without the cute Monkeys.

Classified: The Sentinel Crisis: A first person shooter where you are on a rescue mission to save the missing military scientist who invented the weapon suit in the game and vanished somewhere in the Balkans. It is a budget title and is on sell for the low price of $15.00 and what other game can you rescue Shameless on his vacation.

Close Combat: First to Fight for the XBox: Another military trainer that is turned into a game. This time it is the Marines squad tactics trainer. Close Combat takes place on the mean streets of the middle east and you will command a four man Marine fire team.

Doom 3 for the XBox: From the desk of our senior editor Shameless: “I’ve already talked about Doom III as much as I ever will. I was more disappointed in Doom III than just about any game in recent memory. The technology was good, but the gameplay was so boring that I never even bothered to finish it. I don’t expect the XBox version to be any better.”

DOOM 3: Resurrection of Evil Expansion Pack for the PC version of Doom III: Wow not only do we get Doom III for this XBox this week, we also get the first expansion for Doom III. Id’s publicity people must be working overtime this week. The expansion takes place 2 years after Doom III and well it might have a story. The expansion will add some new maps, new multiplayer modes and a couple of new weapons including the new ,Half Life 2 ripoff weapon, a gravity gun.

ER for the PC: Now you can play as a doctor in the hospital found in the TV series ER. Just like Harvest Moon (farm simulator) not only can you play doctor but you can also find romance or at least spend some quality time with some nurses.

Heretic Kingdoms: The Inquisition: Your god is dead and you a member of the Inquisition set on destroy what is left of your former god. Its big gimmick is a molarity system where your actions effect future events and peoples reaction to you. Didn’t Fable try this and failed?

Laser Squad Nemesis for the PC: From the team that created the hit squad series X-Com comes their next you versus the alien Squad shooter. X-Com was one of those classics from days past and this one looks really good and for 20 bucks it worth a try.

Lego Star Wars for the XBox: Delayed from last weeks comes the best Star Wars game ever (quote taken from “Attack of the Show").

Mr. Driller 2 for the Gameboy Advance: A fun puzzle game that fun in small dose and perfect for the gamer on the go.

MX World Tour for the XBox and Playstation 2: Budget game that has be delayed from last week.

Obscure for the XBox: Another delayed budget game from last week, what is with all these delays.

Rise of Kasai for the Playstation 2: The sequel to the action game Mark of Kri. Rise of Kasai looks like it improves a lot on what Mark of Kri did.

Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga for the Playstation 2: Delayed again, it may actually ship this week it is now 1 month late.

Spy VS Spy for the Playstation 2 and XBox: Mad Magazine comic strip star’s Black Spy and White Spy return to games in a remake of the classic computer (we are talking an 80s game here) game Spy VS Spy.

SWAT 4 for the PC: The next in the SWAT series where you play as a SWAT cop. This one is being hype as the best in the series.

World Championship Poker for Gamecube: A an okay poker game for the Gamecube with an okay selection of poker games.

Normally I do not say anything about games going gold but “Jade Empire” is one of those games that needs to be talked about. “Jade Empire” is due out around April 12 and looks like it will be a killer RPG set in the world of Ancient China and style in the vein of “Hidden Dragon, Crouching Tiger". “Jade Empire” was created by BioWare Studio, best known for “Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic” and the greatest RPG ever “Baldur’s Gate". The thing I love the most about “Jade Empire” is that it comes out in two forms: a limited collector edition and a regular edition. The cool thing about these two edition is that Microsoft choose to charge the same price for both, breaking with the tradition of charging extra for a few crappy movies. I forgot to add, “Doom III” for the XBox went gold, and also comes in a limited edition but will cost more than the regular. I will leave Shameless to talk about “Doom III".

When Adobe announced a new Linux version of their .pdf reader last month, I was as pleased to hear about it as anyone else. When I tried to actually find it at Adobe.com, I was a bit confused. It was nowhere to be found, so I waited until it was published. I tried again, but still didn’t find it. It was only after a couple of tries that I looked into the new release a little deeper and found out that I wasn’t the only one waiting.

Not to worry… I’ve managed to dig up an unpublished link to FTP index of Adobe Reader 7 for Linux. It’s an exposed link, so it’s perfectly legal and appropriate to publish it.

I’ve only been using it on my Athlon-64 system for a short time, but the improvement over old versions of Acrobat are impressive already. First of all, it loads instantly. Secondly, it’s appearance is much closer to that of the Windows version. The clunky-looking Motif windows are gone, and have been replaced by an infinitely more appealing user interface. So far, not a single crash or problem to speak of. The only little complaint is this: when I click on one of the little Adobe advertisements in the upper right corner, I get an error message, and the link target appears in a pop-under. It wouldn’t make sense for either of these behaviors to be intentional, but they are certainly annoying. If that’s all I can find to complain about, then Adobe can congratulate themselves on a job well done. If I find anything else to rave or whine about, I’ll be sure to post it right here.

So far, I see no reason why Adobe has been so quiet about this release. As far as I can tell, it is something that they should be proud of.

For those of us who missed it last week, Toshiba announced a new rechargable battery that is capable of recharging at 60 times the rate of current lithium ion batteries. It can recharge itself to 80% capacity in less that 1 minute. Boring as it sounds, this is likely to be big news if the company releases the battery in 2006 as promised.

I wish I could recharge that fast. Can you imagine what life would be like if you could live on 1 minute of sleep per night?

While perusing eWEEK today, I saw an article about the WordPress home page caught in the act of search engine spamming. Please say it isn’t so. This very blog runs on a slightly modified version of WordPress 1.2. I would hate to think that the same organization who wrote a great blog tool has stooped to something that low. These folks have been among the leaders in the fight to eliminate blog spam. Shouldn’t they practice what they preach?

I’d like to give the Wordpress guys a chance to respond, but I really can’t think of an excuse. Telling an online publication that what they did wasn’t “spam” is just an attempt to get away on a technicality.

If the guys can’t come up with a good reason, maybe the OSS blogging community should think about putting WordPress in the hands of someone better, or if necessary, starting a new project.

Color me disappointed.

As some of you already know, I have been considering an offer by an immense software company to buy ShamelessGeeks.com for a substantial sum of money. Some of you also know that this same company gave me an alternative of appearing before a judge to answer for all of the nasty things that have been said about them on this site over the last few weeks. It is with a mixture of regret and avarice that I announce to you now that I have decided to take the money and run.

We have had a really good run since August, with traffic increases of between 30% and 100% in every month of our existence. We’ve managed this by calmly stating facts, without injecting any of those boring old opinions that others try to stick you with. I thank you, our loyal readers, for actually bothering to read what we have to say.

I’m certain that the new owners of “ShamelessGeeksXP” will maintain the same high standards that I have set for this site. I’m certain that they will not try to sway the members of our little group to their cause. I am also certain that they will not make use of any personal information that they find in the user database, despite the fact that they paid a significant amount extra for it.

In closing, I would like to wish all of you a happy life, happy blogging, and a very happy April 1st.