Are We There Yet?

I love holiday weekends. I especially love holiday weekends with family. There's nothing like good conversation, good times, and good weather.

Did I say nothing? Because I meant "nothing...except for good food". I think our founding fathers forgot Article VIII of the Constitution, "Holiday Feasts". In fact, I'd be willing to bet that it goes even farther back than that. I think that when Moses came down Mount Sinai, he had a 3rd tablet with the 11th Commandment, "Thou shalt eat everything Mom cooks on all U.S. Federal Holidays". Moses, being the good man he was, took this to heart and found himself starved and tired half way down Mount Sinai on Labor Day. Wouldn't you know it? The First and Original Grill-master, AKA God, had anticipated this. The 3rd tablet was really a succulent, smoked piece of brisket.

I think the rest is ancient history.

The other day, I was playing a great game of Malarky with some members of my family. If you've never played Malarky, it's like Balderdash except instead of making up definitions of little known words, you make up explanations to life's imponderable questions. An example question would be, "What's the cottage in cottage cheese?"

Anyway, my Mom is having a hard time with certain aspects of the game. Since only one person will receive the correct answer to the question to be presented to the group, the whole idea of the game is to bluff as convincingly as you can. Players vote on what they think is the correct answer with points being awarded for getting votes for your answer as well as for voting correctly. Thus, the best way to get lots of points is to present the most convincing answer (correct or incorrect) so as to get the most votes/points.

In case you missed it: confidence is key.

After a round of the game while we're deciding how to vote, I was holding on to the chip to vote for my Mom's answer. I looked at my Mom and noticed that she was having trouble deciding on who to vote for. As if my thoughts had a psychic effect on her, she verbalized her difficulty in deciding who to vote for to the rest of us. Seizing the opportunity to get a few laughs as I changed my vote, I dumped her chip on the table and promptly informed everyone that I was thankful she confided her uncertainty to everyone else as I was going to (incorrectly) vote for her up to that point. We all had a few good laughs at this and my adjusted vote ended up garnering me a point for a correct vote.

Little did I know that the joke was on me. After scoring was done for the round, my wife promptly informed me that my vocal decision to change my vote from my Mom to someone else had a side effect. As I was going to vote for someone else's answer, it became obvious to her that I did not present the correct answer either. She then changed her vote to someone other than me - effectively negating the point I earned in changing my answer. Had I quietly changed my vote instead, I would have ended up with an additional point.

While it was all in good fun in this case, there's a moral to the story. While a situation may seem funny to you, pointing it out to others can make you the butt of the joke instead.

Check out this article from Reuters. It reports that Comcast will soon be doubling their downstream bandwidth to their cable broadband subscribers...for no extra cost (although they have recently raised prices for non-cable subscribers).

I've never been one to pick up a dollar bill off the ground without first checking for the attached strings. Yet, this seems to be a "good thing". Granted, 1.5Mbps is already quite fast (it should sustain about a 170KB/s download), but at 3.0Mb/s, we're talking about a 360KB/s download. This begs the question of how many servers out on the Internet can sustain this type of download for you anyway? I can't answer that question, but I can say that on my 2.5Mb/s cable line, I frequently get 280-300KB/s download speeds with 220-250KB/s being the norm. This is still a decent improvement over 170KB/s and should make computer gamers and P2P file swappers very happy.

ArsTechnica highlighted this article as well, but put a slightly different spin on it. I'm kind of disappointed in them for lamenting the fact that their upstream is remaining the same. 256Kb/s isn't a horrible upstream (nor is it great), but you're getting something for nothing here! Maybe I'm too selfish with my bandwidth. More downstream is not a bad thing, nor should it be taken for granted. Some day, the Internet will catch up and you'll be thankful. Besides, how odd is it to think you can get more downstream bandwidth from your ISP than can be provided by the Internet at large? Wasn't it just a couple of years ago that we couldn't even get enough bandwidth to satisfy our downloading desires?

I think the real issue here that could curb your euphoria is that the President of Comcast's cable division states,

"Our job No. 1 is increasing speed..."

If Comcast can afford to hand out free bandwidth (especially twice the bandwidth), then on the other hand they should be able to lower prices without cutting bandwidth. I'd much rather prefer the latter.

A few months back, I bought a new CD for probably the first time in over 12 months. I'm not a big fan of the RIAA and their recent manipulation of the judicial system to serve their archaic and out-dated desires to stay in the 20th century with regards to distribution of digital media. I'd buy a ton more CDs on two conditions:

1. Prices are lowered to < $10 USD for single CDs. Ideally, I'd shoot for $8.
2. Copy protection is done away with so I can do whatever I would like to with the music on the CD including, but not limited to:
   • making backups on CDRs in case my original gets scratched or becomes unplayable
   • ripping in to the format of my choice so I can listen to it on my computer without using my CD-ROM
   • transferring to my as-yet and for some time in the future unpurchased portable MP3 player
   • copying to a CDR with other legitimately acquired songs in to a mix CD for my own personal enjoyment

Unfortunately, the recent trend of CD copy protection to prevent file swappers from getting copies from legitimately purchased CDs is infringing on the rights granted to me by that license. Case in point (and the whole reason I started this post in the first place): the CD I purchased was Disturbed's latest, Believe. Even though I hate the RIAA and what they're doing, contrary to the picture they are trying to convey about "kids" of my generation, I believe in supporting music artists that suit my tastes and put out a product worthy of my hard-earned cash. This CD is one of them.

Jesus, Doug, get to the point will ya?

So, I buy this CD and get home. Later that evening, I'm doing some homework for an online course I was taking and wanted to listen to the CD. I put it in my CD drive and discover that this CD is "enhanced", which is a clever marketing term that means "we're going to highjack your computer now and display all sorts of cool stuff about this CD and try and sell you merchandise before we let you listen to the music". After closing this out (and turning off auto-run in Windows), I fire up WinAmp to start enjoying some musical madness.

There's just one problem. WinAmp doesn't recognize the CD. In fact, it can't even play a single second of the CD. Nada on Windows Media Player either. Naturally, I was quite annoyed. Because of this problem, I was not able to rip the CD in to MP3 format using either program. The only way I could play the CD on my computer was using IsoBuster which was able to play the raw data from the CD one song at a time, with me manually selecting the next track. When I tried ripping the audio data off the CD using IsoBuster, it came out with lots of static and noise.

So now I'm left with a fantastic CD that I can only play in my car CD player (where I spend an hour a day) and not at my computer (where I spend >10 hours a day). This begs the question of whether or not it was worth it to purchase the CD when the manufacturer/label/artist/RIAA is telling me how I can use it?

The answer? No.

I found some new blog software yesterday that I'm toying with the idea of using. It's called Movable Type. It's quite different from Blogger and is definitely the "geek's" blogging solution. Installation took about an hour to get all the components in their proper places and installed as well as file permissions set. The configuration options for it are staggering.

It's entirely hosted on your own server space and does nothing with the Movable Type website, unlike Blogger. This means that I'm no longer at the mercy of the Blogger site being up in order for me to post. It also uses Perl, which I'm not too crazy about. The last program I used that required Perl was PopFile for spam filtering. PopFile worked like a charm once it was properly trained. It used perl to parse the emails and store/load/compare the word list it created. The thing is that the perl executable turned out to be an incredible resource hog. It ended up holding 30-40MB of RAM, which I thought was pretty unacceptable considering it was being used by a program only in execution during SMTP transactions. I got rid of PopFile after that. I hope this doesn't turn out to be the same.

Other improvements for Movable Type:

• Integrated comments system with full control over them through web admin (including IP blocking)
• RSS v1.0 and v2.0 syndication. I had written a PHP script that created an RSS v1.0 compatible feed from the page, but this is a more complete solution.
• Categorization of posts. This might be useful since I talk about all sorts of things on this page.
• Integrated search feature.
• Much more powerful and better archive support.
• Supports importing Blogger posts so I wouldn't lose anything or have to re-enter posts.

Of course, this all comes on the announcement that the now Google-owned Blogger is folding their subscription based Blogger Pro and wrapping its features in to the free Blogger. Their Blogger Pro web site is acting funny for me, so I have no idea what this entails right now.

As you can see, I have migrated over to the Movable Type blog software that I posted about previously. I found an excellent template from Neil Turner that's he's made available on his site. I made some minor changes to it to suit my tastes, but it's pretty slick, isn't it?

So, now I've got a great layout, a comments system, RSS v1.0 and v2.0 syndication, and better archiving. I'm pretty excited.

What is it with gaming companies making beta releases of their games that don't include uninstallations?

I try to beta test as many games as I can because I think it's exciting to try out games before anyone else and I enjoy trying to make a game I'm anticipating get released in the best playable state possible. As a Software Engineer, I take great pains in making my software as bug free as possible and I expect nothing less from others. But it really agitates me when companies put out a beta release of a game that has a complete installation function but lacks uninstallation features.

You took the time to make a fancy update/patch system. You installed a Start menu folder (without asking, another no-no). You added a desktop icon (see adding a Start menu folder). You filled my registry's HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE tree with entries up the wazoo. Why can't you undo it all?

Now, I understand it's a beta. Trust me. I understand betas better than most people. They're incomplete. They're buggy. Most of the time, the installation is just a stub since the final file structure isn't complete and the art for the installer is worthy of being attached to the refrigerator with a magnet. But the least you can do is help me keep my hard drive and registry clean. Windows doesn't always add that nifty item in the Add/Remove Programs dialog, ya know?

The Internet is a fantastic entity and my life would be entirely different without it. Maybe I'd have become an architect if my Dad hadn't introduced me to computers and set our family up with Prodigy 10 or so years ago. I wouldn't have my job today without the Internet, that's for sure. In other words, I really, really like the Internet.

But sometimes, I come across things on the Web that just about push me over the edge.

I know I make a lot of cracks about the general public's ability to (ab)use their computers, but that's no excuse for intentionally and deliberately praying on this fact for profit. Not long ago, the hot "business practice" making use of this was the spam through the Windows Messenger service. A (somewhat) useful local network administration tool was rendered useless by the devil spawn of the Internet, spammers. I can't begin to count the number of friends and family that I helped disable this service on their computers.

What happened today was another one of those moments for me. I was at work and it was about 9am when my wife signed on to AOL Instant Messenger and informed me that my laptop had a window on it that said "Infected by XMLRPC virus, click OK to remove". This was incredibly shocking to me since I had just patched XP on the laptop yesterday after Microsoft announced more vulnerabilites. It's also incredible since the machine is behind a router that blocks that port.

Luckily, I had just installed RealVNC on the machine for just such a circumstance. I logged in to the machine and discovered that a web page my wife had just visited popped up a JavaScript message box with the virus warning. They were, of course, trying to sell you some anti-virus program or other. She didn't know whether or not the message was legit. She knows I have an anti-virus program installed on the machine and she knows to tell me whenever something funny happens on the computer.

I'm not surprised this kind of junk happens, but it's infuriating nonetheless.

For the past couple of weeks, my company's mail server has been struggling to deal with unprecedented quantities of spam. Between renewed efforts by spammers, bounce messages generated by email servers rejecting messages spoofed with our addresses and containing a spreading virus, and normal traffic, it's constantly grinding away just to keep up with the load. SpamAssassin isn't flagging enough of them for me.

Spammers are a perfect specimen of a virus. They exist even though no sane and rational individual wants them around (except their fellow support group members). They adapt to an increasingly aggressive and hostile "working" environment. They develop and deploy new methods to reach their goal. And since the dawn of the first spam message, their numbers have only increased.

To combat the amount of spam that has been slipping through in to our Inboxes, we switched over from POP3 to IMAP to take advantage of MDaemon's ability to learn from spam that gets through its filters. IMAP is different from POP3 in that the whole intent of it is for mail to remain on the server making your email 100% portable while still giving you the ability to use the mail client of your choice (provided they support the IMAP protocol). You can have public and private directories for categorization of mail, all done on the server. This is where the use of IMAP in combating spam comes in to play.

There are public IMAP folders for all users on our mail server where users can place email that gets in to their Inbox that should have been flagged as spam. There's another one for mail that was marked as spam that shouldn't be. Every night, MDaemon processes these messages and learns from to be more effective in its filtration process. In theory (and practice), your mail server becomes a better front line defense in combating spam.

That's all find and dandy, but it also dropped a bombshell on me. My mail client of choice for the past 6 months or so has been PocoMail. I switched over after Outlook Express went on a crashing binge for a few weeks and pushed me over the edge. I was quite happy with PocoMail, although the recent release of v3.0 has seriously disappointed me. It got slower, more cumbersome, and less intuitive. It also added IMAP support. Unfortunately for me, it's very rudimentary and is horribly incomplete. It's so bad, that I have no choice but to change email clients.

So, my search has begun once again. I tried Mozilla Thunderbird and was impressed enough to convert to it on my home machine, but it's lacking a few key features for usage at work. I can't stand Eudora either. Migrating email clients is a huge project for me since I have a lot of email accounts, loads of messages, and a very organized filing structure. Unfortunately, I think I may have no choice but to go back to Outlook Express. Even worse, its horrid importation process refuses to import PocoMail... :-/

Everyone has a story to share about ISP's and their lack of responsibility when it comes to maintaining, policing, and generally "taking care of" their networks.

Now I have mine.

About 7pm CST, the central servers for a service I maintain came under a distributed denial of service attack by about a dozen IP addresses. While the source of this attack was spread out a bit, the majority of the damage was being done by a few addresses located on Verio's network. After attempting to take care of things on my end, I was able to get things under control, but they were still being a nuisance as their traffic was causing a strain on certain pieces of hardware and software. I started by calling our ISP, SBC.

Of course, I get the most imcompetent tech support "specialist" on the phone. After explaining to her the situation, she had no clue what a denial of service attack was. I explained that it was denying me of getting reasonable service from their provided Internet connection and she put me on hold for a few minutes. She then came back on the line and informed me that they cannot support my service and as long as the Internet connection was "running", it was out of their hands. I was told that all I could do was send an email to their abuse account and they would "investigate" it. Yeah, a whole hell of a lot good that will do me.

I next tried calling Verio. The guy I got on the phone listened intently and took down the IP addresses before putting me on hold. Wonder of all wonders, he came back on the line and told me the exact same thing the woman at SBC told me. WTF? Do the major ISP's share tech support phone scripts, or what?

I cannot for the life of me understand why ISP's don't give a rip what's going on over their network. I would understand their position if I had called up and said some guy was emailing me a virus, make him stop. But no, I called up with concrete data that some people on their network were flooding my network with utter crap. Some 12 year-old in NY is giggling up a storm while this 1337 script he downloaded off IRC attacks my servers and floods the hardware of the two ISP's at the start and end point of this junk, and they don't care? They expect me to email a generic abuse account so I can get an auto-response back that says they're doing everything they can to ensure my Internet experience is a pleasant one?

If they want to make my Internet experience a pleasant one, they can start by actually taking their customers seriously. Not everyone that calls the tech support line is wondering why they can't get their email to work.

/rant

After my ordeal with irresponsible ISPs came to a close, I needed to vent some frustrations, so I started playing with the Jedi Academy demo. The web site is a marvelous piece of work. I highly recommend checking it out, if only to see what some great web designers are doing over at LucasArts.

I started playing the Jedi Academy demo several days ago and got frustrated with a certain part of it so I set it aside. I came away from my first hands-on experience with the game horribly underwhelmed by its implementation. I had seen the E3 video and some pre-release videos and was quite impressed by what they had put together. The first few moments with the demo were a mixture of euphoria and disappointment. I like the character creation aspect of the game. The character models are flawless and gorgeous. You can really customize your lightsaber as well. But the choices you get in customizing your character itself are incomplete to say the very least. There's a wide variety of species to choose from and you can be male or female, but the selection of torsos, clothing, and heads is severely limited.

However, that's just cosmetics. After an hour of playing a game, I would forget about the lack of character customization real fast. But in this case, that's not necessarily a good thing.

The first demo mission sends you to Tatooine with Kyle Katarn (hero of the Jedi Knight series) to check out some smuggling/mercenary activity. The first thing I notice is the TERRIBLE animations as you walk across the desert sand. Your character turns on their heels and literally glides as he or she moves. It's like they're not even walking on sand or any surface for that matter. Then, I notice that the "cut-scene" has a horribly repetitive pattern to it. Five seconds of animation, fade out, change camera angle, fade in, five seconds of animation, and so on.... It's like using one of those flip books you had when you were a kid to tell a story. Kyle then proceeds to lock himself in the cantina while you do all the leg work for the mission. And he's supposed to be "helping" you since you're just a Padawan!

Yeah, yeah, yeah...but it's all about the gameplay, right? Right. Let me just get this off my chest now: it falls short in a big way. I have the mouse sensitivity cranked all the way down and I still feel like Neo moving through the Matrix. It's virtually impossible to make your character move in a way that is different from a 6 year-old after discovering his teenage brother's stash of Jolt Cola. This makes for many flying leaps off of ledges when in lightsaber duels in the second demo mission. Save and save often.

Other rants about the Jedi Academy gameplay:

• If my Jedi swings over the head of a crouching enemy one more time, I'm gonna lop off her legs at the knees to ensure she can hit crouched enemies without having to stand still in front of their blasters.
• "New Objectives Added" - Where the hell is the objectives screen?? There's no key in the controls map for it! (A systematic search of the keyboard found it to be Tab)
• Terrible force power interface. You can map fast keys to force powers or you can scroll through a list and make one "active". Both options are too slow when in a frenzied lightsaber duel since you need both hands to move and fight.
• Certain areas of the game are designed to force you to put away your lightsaber and shoot a blaster. You're supposed to be a Jedi (well, a Padawan). When was the last time you saw Obi-Wan whip out a blaster to scare off some Sand People?
• Dark Jedi use Force Grip too much. You have two options to get out of it: Force Pull or Force Push (you better memorize the quick keys for them or you'll be as limp as a cooked noodle before you find it when SCROLLING through a list for it). Force Pull is suicidal since you'll yank them right at your hanging, defenseless body. Force Push it is.

Other things I liked about Jedi Academy:

• The sound and music are spectacular as all LucasArts published Star Wars games are known to have.
• Good and sometimes great graphics.
• Good mixture of RPG and action elements.

By now, anyone who reads this blog regularly (both of you) know of my recent ISP escapade and the ensuing rant on ISP accountability.

Well, it's 3am and I've learned a lot tonight.

• When you think you've got a DoS attack under control, you don't.
• You're not REALLY under a DoS attack until the LEDs on your firewall start blinking out "SOS" in Morse code.
• Verio may refuse to let you speak to a human, but the people behind their 2nd level abuse email account work 24/7 and they work fast.
• Jerol from Verio is my hero. He stopped the madness. He even called to tell me so.
• The FBI apparently doesn't handle "private" (as in non-government) computer crimes. Or at least, the poor junior agent manning the phone at the Milwaukee field office at 2:30am doesn't think so.
• The Secret Service, however DOES handle this type of thing.

GameSpy is running a series for the week that lists their Top 25 overrated games of all time.

I'm a bit of a freak when it comes to "lists". In some instances, I think lists are God's answer to, well me. They say everything about a topic in a neat, organized, and concise manner that contradicts the verbal diarrhea usually spewing from my mouth when enumerating important points on a topic. On the other hand, lists are cruel, harsh, and have a penchant for showing writer bias better than a Kenneth Star investigation.

Naturally, GameSpy isn't even in to the top 10 yet and I already have issues with it. First, they attempt to categorize the things that made the game overrated - more hype than entertainment, done better before, complete letdown, and overpraised (GameSpy's attempt at being magnanimous). Somehow, GameSpy screwed up its application of categories on the first game, Neverwinter Nights. They say it was done better before. If they are speaking in terms of PC NWN vs. pen-and-paper RPG, then they are correct. However, this is all about video games. It's tough to claim NWN was done better before when there isn't another game that even comes close to offering up the ability for player-driven modules and DM'ing. Nice try, GameSpy.

Unfortunately, thus far, the entire list is rife with gross category misapplications such as these. Battle Arena Toshinden is pegged as overpraised and a total letdown (contradictory labels in their own right). While BAT may have been a shallow fighting game, it did showcase some stunning 3D graphics and straight-forward 3D gameply on a new platform (the PSX) that needed something to catch people's attention. For all intents and purposes, BAT performed exactly as Sony intended it to perform. Curiously, the GameSpy article spends as much time talking about the failure of the franchise (beyond the first game) as they do about the game itself. Sounds to me like the editors placed Toshinden in here based upon a comparison with the masterpiece that is Soul Calibur 2 and not on the game's own flaws and faults.

I could go on and on about this article (heck, I just quit complaining about #24). The placement of Battlecruiser: 3000AD at #19 before Super Mario Sunshine is an abomination itself. I cringe at the thought of what is to come. Will they end up placing Grand Theft Auto: Vice City at #1 because it was to GTA what X-Com: Terror from the Deep was to X-Com (e.g. more of the same)?

Is there a better comic for my industry than the immortal Dilbert? Dilbert connects with geeks in a way that Calvin & Hobbes never could. While both comics have an innate, childish sense of humor that appeals to anyone human, geeks find Dilbert especially funny because there isn't a strip of the comic that we haven't lived.

The author, Scott Adams, regularly solicits the DNRC (Dogbert New Ruling Class) members for trends in the industry that he can mock in his comic. He's writing about our life mixed lovingly with his talent for presentation that makes it accessible to everyone topped with a dash of satire. Secretaries, human resources, tech support, engineers, admins...it doesn't matter. If you have a tie to the industry, the comic strikes a chord within your very soul that resonates throughout every fiber of your being. It connects with you in such an elegant manner that you never knew comics were capable of this kind of communication. And when it's all over, if you don't have the beginnings of a smile on your face, a tear in your eye, or a stitch in your side from laughing, then Scott Adams has a Dilbert character with your name on it.

On that note, I leave you with the comic that inspired this entry:

I went through the Homeworld 2 demo about a week or two ago. Back in college, I'd played the original Homeworld quite heavily. It's back drops were stunning, the story was incredible, and it was a fairly revolutionary game for the time. I don't recall ever completing the game as my addiction to Counter-Strike rapidly asserted its claim on my gaming time. But I do have fond memories of the original. When Sierra said they were publishing a sequel, I was almost giddy with anticipation.

I initially gave my impressions on this demo to Ian (click to check out his thoughts on the demo). I wrote him an email with my thoughts and impressions shortly after completing it, so here's what I thought:

• It will be worth reading the manual if you buy it. I forgot how complex Homeworld was. Staying to the original formula has made the sequel no different.
• The demo only has one tutorial that familiarizes you with movement, the camera, and sensors map (an important key to the game). Prior experience with Homeworld is very helpful
• The first mission is a bit of a tutorial as well.
• Graphics are really good again, although I'm not sure they're as stunning as the original. I recall being awed at the backdrops of the original. I'm not in awe with the sequel. They may have sacrificed some of this quality to keep the game running smoothly due to the increased polys on the ship and better ship effects.
• That being said, it ran pretty good on my machine with half the settings on medium quality and the other half on high quality (machine: P4 1.8 GHz, 512MB RAM, 64MB GF3).
• The added shadows and some other (particle) effects are really good.
• Panning the camera with the mouse at the default sensitivity is bad. Does no one pay attention to the default mouse sensitivity anymore? I like the mouse a little loose, but it is way too sensitive. It jumps all over the place. Make extensive use of the sensor map and center on active ship key (default is middle mouse button) to navigate quickly. Ship grouping hot keys are a must as well.
• Sound is excellent again.
• Biggest improvement I've seen in the limited amount of time you have with the demo is in cut scenes. They're fantastic. Some are in-game, others are aren't. Both are great.
• Voice acting is about a C+. Some characters are just ok and others do quite well

GameSpy continues their crusade to demonstrate just how retarded they truly are. In other words, GameSpy's countdown of the 25 most overrated games continues. Next up on their hit list? Halo.

Their commentary on Halo is one of the worst explanations I've ever read. The article contains references to Tribes 2 and Quake III - two games that have no business being in an article that was supposed to point out how much we were all duped by Halo (despite the fact that that is far from the truth). Halo sold Xbox's. Period. Overrated, been there done that games do NOT sell expensive consoles shortly after a launch with a small library and made by one of the most love/hate companies in the known universe.

The thing that ticks me off the most is how easily the writers brush off and understate the things that Halo did right while magnifying the things that it did wrong. This is not called pointing out hype; it's called digging for dirt. Their initial review of Halo (85/100) highlights the lack of true Internet multiplayer for 3 paragaphs while giving a passing remark to its included co-op mode, a rarity in FPS games to this very day that gamers are constantly demanding. The brilliance of certain Halo level designs is overshadowed by the repetitive ones. The inclusion of drivable vehicles and their brilliant implementation is merely checked off as just another feature, neglecting the fact that it was Halo which drove more game makers (PC developers!) to include player accessible vehicles in their games. And for the love of God, where is the mention of Halo's wondrous soundtrack? You know, the one that won several industry awards? The one that Bungie later released on CD because so many people demanded it?

Some of you might say, "Halo got an 85, that's pretty good so what's your problem??" To get some perspective, I looked at their entire list of Xbox reviews for titles rated higher than Halo. I found 36 titles above Halo's 85/100. Highlights of this list inlude ESPN Interational Winter Sports 2002 (87), Kelly Slater's Pro Surfing (88), Wakeboarding Unleashed (89), and Wreckless (86). Of the 36 titles, 22 were sports titles. None were FPS games (MechAssault and Steel Battallion coming the closest) and several were racers. I also considered their ratings on the Xbox's other launch titles (of which they reviewed 15). The highest rated launch title was Madden 2002 (90) and the lowest was Shrek (48). The mean (tossing out the highest and lowest) was 78, the median was 81, and the mode was 84. In other words, Halo was pretty much an average title right in line with the rest of the Xbox launch games in their eyes. Who can name 3 other titles available on launch day? Sorry, DOA3 wasn't available on launch day (and besides, it's on the list as well). We don't remember Halo because of the hype. We remember it because it was a fantastic work of art.

As if I needed more proof of the absurdity on display here, consider the fact that Halo is still being sold at full price despite its obvious place on the Xbox Platinum Hits list. Overrated games tend to be identified as such as time goes on. The only ones scoffing at what Halo has accomplished in terms of console FPS, indeed in the genre of FPS, are those of GameSpy. It'll be interesting to see how they rate the Halo PC release. I guarantee a rating no lower than 95 due to it's Internet multiplayer and the fact that its mouse and keyboard controlled, two things that every decent PC FPS game has had for years that no console FPS game had in 2001. So why is it held against Halo?

The boys of Penny-Arcade have taken the torch of my crusade against GameSpy's horrid list (a list so bad that it makes David Letterman's Top 10 look brilliant) right to the butt of GameSpy and lit them on fire. I look forward to every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to read what Tycho and Gabe have to say about an industry I love very much. It almost makes me and my teensy little site feel relevant to know that they think the very same about GameSpy's "expose" that I do. Tycho put his finger right on the heart of the matter:

You can go look at it if you want, I'm certainly not putting a link to it here - suffice it to say, where it is obvious it is obvious, and where they attempt to be brash and iconoclastic it's just insulting.

I've talked about the Call of Duty demo and raved about how much I loved Medal of Honor: Allied Assault. I just completed the expansion pack for MOHAA, Spearhead. I enjoyed it, although not near as much as the original. The ending of the expansion was just as gratifying as the original, which is to say that it was the equivalent of finding an apple in your Halloween bag when you were 12. Sadly, the Spearhead expansion pack was so short (probably about 5 hours worth of play time) that it doesn't surprise me that there is no ending to speak of really.

War games have become extremely popular in the gaming industry lately. Medal of Honor showed a level of realism and immersion not seen in war games of the past. Everyone grew up in a neighborhood containing at least one middle aged man obsessed with war history (I know I lived next to one for some time in Iowa). Games of their time usually consisted of little tokens representing the cavalry making a charge at Gettysburg. We are blessed with living in an age of gigahertz, more video RAM than we had system RAM not two years ago, and a rapidly advancing 3D graphics industry. With this comes the ability to bring to life more than ever the realities of the battlefield as millions of soldiers knew it 65 years ago.

It's very rare that I pause to contemplate the relationship between video games and reality. It's a rather clear cut division for me. No matter how immersive the music is or realistic the graphics are or interactive the environment is...it's still a game and nothing will ever change that for me. There is nothing to ponder or contemplate usually. My PC and Xbox have reset buttons. Reality does not. That doesn't mean I don't appreciate what games do; nothing could be further from the truth. However, the recent explosion of war games in our technology friendly world has given me pause on numerous occasions recently.

The first that I can recall is a level in Medal of Honor: Allied Assault that will go down in infamy, in my opinion. It is the Omaha Beach assault during the invasion of Normandy. Calling it a "level" is insulting in many ways as it actually took place, but this very fact is what will prove my point. I played this level for probably 30 minutes without ever leaving the beach. Sometimes, a shell landed outside the ramp of my landing craft and made my squad mates and me in to sand. Other times, I was cut down by machine gun fire from the German nests that surrounded the beach. Still other times, I ran myself through as I crawled too close to the barbed wire after taking a few too many bullets and pieces of shrapnel. I probably died on this part of the level 45 or more times.

I was just about to get frustrated with it and started thinking to myself, "Why oh why did the game designers DO THIS?". And then it occurred to me. The boys behind MOHAA had just succeeded in placing my pasty white, geeky skin on the beaches of Normandy. And I realized that for every time my meaningless binary character had died, 53+ real men died on the sands of Omaha Beach June 6, 1944.

It gave me the shivers. You could have sewn a blanket using one of the hairs on the back of my neck as a needle.

Spearhead didn't have any moments as stirring as this, however the commentary of "Private Jack Barnes" between missions with the photograhps depicting the actual events of the mission you had just carried out from the safety of your leather reclining computer chair fading in and out before your eyes still had a powerful effect. It's difficult for me to comprehend war and the magnitude of it in terms of manpower. I see pictures of endless fields with neverending parallel lines of white crosses and I can't comprehend the sheer numbers behind it all. I don't know that I really want to either. And it fills my heart with grief to think of the people for whom those numbers and those fields hold a memory and perhaps a loved one.

I don't feel as though the existence of these "games" should be insulting to those that actually served and lived the life we pretend to live for entertainment, but I can't speak for them. But I think it's important in cases like these to reflect on what's being represented by the flashing lights before your eyes because there's real meaning behind it.

It's been a busy time on the game demo front lately starting with the official release of Valve's Steam client. While the major download portals are still overloaded with people downloading Steam, game companies have decided to pile it on:

• Lord of the Rings: Return of the King - EA's 3rd installment in their cash cow (but lackluster) game trilogy based on the movies.
• Lord of the Rings: War of the Ring - an RTS game where you can play good or evil from the makers of Battle Realms. The graphical styles are very similar if you liked Battle Realms.
• Commandos 3: Destination Berlin - The latest in the Commandos series. I never played the second game (despite it's critical success), however I was a big fan of the original. Rumor is that gameplay has been tweaked quite a bit and stealth is a major factor in succeeding.

The video on my DVD demo disc for the Xbox looked intriguing and the demo is on my "list" (along with a million others) to check out. The only thing that disappointed me in the video is the sword fighting sequence they continually showed. Probably about half of the 5 minute video featured Robin Hood sword fighting against various kronies in a variety of locations, but each sequence of Robin Hood's defend and attack moves was identical. It was disgusting to see him perform the same attack combo over and over. I sure hope that this was just a limitation of the build that was used to create the video.

I've been thirsting for a decent sword fighting combat engine for quite some time. Why? Because then it would be possible to make Highlander online. What a fantastic license this would be for a MMO, no? Imagine the possiblities. The developer could set up two different "realms". In one realm is where you would spend the majority of your time learning, fighting, and role-playing as you fight to become the next legendary Highlander of MacLeod proportions. In the other realm would be the on-going "There can be only one" tournament free-for-all. This realm would be like Hardcore mode in Diablo 2. You only get one chance. Lose and you're done until the tournament is over. The developers could hold these tournaments twice a year with some nifty prizes for the people who make it to the "end". The very thought of this fills me with all sorts of warm and fluffy feelings.

The question is, who could do it right?

My boss recently added a Culligan bottled water cooler to our office. Of course, this is a good thing since our tap water made liquid copper look capable of quenching your thirst. It's also cheaper than cases of soda, healthier for a room full of geeks that don't leave their computers, and suits the needs of the 50% of our workforce currently on the Atkins diet. All in all, it's something we're very happy about.

On the other side of things, however, I don't think I've seen my blood sugar this low since my tonsils were removed in 1998...

I came upon an article on Wired that mentions that the online mega-retailer, Amazon, has stepped up its investment in search technology and announced it will be developing search engine technology for comparison shopping. The interesting thing, as the article points out, is that Amazon plans on licensing this technology to other companies which would effectively mean they are offering to license it to their competition.

Currently, Amazon uses Google to search its site, which also has a comparison shopping search engine, Froogle. The real gem of the article is at the end where they mention that Amazon has appointed search engine guru Udi Manber to be in charge of recruiting for the Amazon division that will be developing this technology.

Ever on top of the search engine market, the brilliant minds of Google went to work quick. What did they come up with? Why, a sponsored link of course. Search Google for Udi Manber and the top link is "Work at Google".

I wonder who the sponsor of that link could be?

[UPDATE:] I just noticed in the right-side column of the same google search page yet another sponsored link. It's a "Work at Amazon" link. This is just too funny. Amazon announces the appointment of a search engine expert to head up recruiting for development of a technology that will compete with Google (whom Amazon already has a working relationship of some sort). Google fights back by placing a sponsored link to their hiring page at the top of a search for said search engine expert. Not to be out done, Amazon then PURCHASES ad space on the very same Google search term in order for an Amazon hiring link to also appear on the search result page.

Oh man...it's like a crazy soap opera. I can't stop laughing...

[UPDATE 2:] A friend commented that he didn't see the Amazon sponsor link when checking out the search result page. Now that I try it again, I see that he's right. Lucky for me, I still had a tab open in Mozilla that shows it. Here's a link to an image of it.

Ian forwarded me this image today. Talk about truth in advertising. Where was this kind of reality check when I applied to Mozee? :-p

About a week ago, I ranted about Halo's placement on Gamespy's Top 25 most overrated games list. Halo came in at an astounding #10. In their explanation, GameSpy basically went on a tirade about how FPS games can't be fully enjoyed on consoles, the level design was reptitive, and it lacked true Internet multiplayer. I countered by pointing out that Halo was (and still is, in my opinion) the definitive FPS game on any console system. I also argued that the things they held against Halo weren't about the game, rather they were about the limitations the console placed on the game. Instead of focusing on the Xbox Halo experience, GameSpy focused on what was missing from their imaginitive PC Halo experience. If a review site can't focus on what is rather than what could have been, then how are we supposed to interpret their reviews?

I still feel that their Xbox rating of Halo (85/100) was extremely harsh and unfair. It was at that time that I guaranteed a Halo PC review of 95% or higher.

Well, GameSpy has recently changed their rating format from a percentage to stars (probably to give them more leeway in arguing the accuracy of their ratings). In any case, GameSpy has reviewed Halo PC and given it FIVE out of FIVE stars. Their reviewer (who also reviewed Halo Xbox) just about sums it up here:

I was maybe the only reviewer who wasn't totally smitten with Halo when it came out on the Xbox, and I'm sure there are people who would argue it was because I've spent too much time playing PC shooters, and have come to expect things like lightning-fast controls and Internet play. Whatever the reason, I've simply enjoyed Halo on the PC far more than I did on the Xbox -- when everything's clicking, it's the closest I've seen a shooter come to providing perfect combat -- and that's not something I say lightly.

The review admits that the greatest pitfall of Halo remains: it's somewhat reptitive level design. How this doesn't account for a half-star missing from their rating doesn't add up to me - level design is extremely integral to the FPS experience. He also raves (and I do mean RAVES) about how much better Halo is with a keyboard and mouse combination than a controller. Apparently the Internet multiplayer is also implemented in a first-class fashion. It really bugs me however, that he also glazes over the fact that in order to crank up the features and run in a higher resolution, you'll need a hefty PC. Laughably, he also argues that Halo is the type of game that will make you want to upgrade your PC to play it. Funny how this argument wasn't also used in pointing out that it also made people want to buy Xbox's two years ago!

It's nice to see Halo get the accolades from GameSpy that it's always deserved. It's a fantastic game that deserves a spot amongst the best FPS games ever. The fact that GameSpy can drag Halo's name through the mud one week and then turn around and praise it to high heaven the next merely points out how laughable their overrated list was in the first place. I guess the concept of context is lost on their writers.

Ian clued me in on the Law & Order 2 game demo not too long ago. The first game based on the popular television series recieved pretty good reviews according to GameRankings.com, especially considering the flop that usually follows licensing television and movie programs such as this one. Anyway, the demo caught my eye because it looks like it takes you back to the good ole days of adventure gaming a la Sierra's many famous Quest games.

You spend half your time as Detective Briscoe's partner collecting evidence on the crime. All of the demo takes place with you playing this role. All in all, it lasted about 15-20 minutes. I don't think there'll be much freedom in terms of what you do, however it seems to have a pretty good depth to the game. You have the ability to put people under surveillance and get psychiatric evaluations. You can send evidence items off to the lab for analysis or research department for more information. Interviews are structured with you picking from a list of questions to ask. Your line of questioning determines how much and the type of information you get from the person. Ask the wrong questions and you'll get nowhere.

The other half of your time is supposed to be spent teaming up with Assistant District Attorney Serena Southerlyn. As the demo doesn't allow you to try out this part of the game, I don't know how it works or have any impressions on it. The web site has some screens and info on this portion of the game.

The sound is average. I think they could have done more with the ambient sound in the demo to immerse you in the case a bit more. The first time you step in to the car where a murder took place, they could certainly do a few things. Perhaps they tried and it sounded cheesy so it was removed. The voice acting is quite good as the actors and actresses supply their voices for the game. The graphics are average. I like the stylization of the graphics. The characters are portrayed in a way that almost borders on a caricature, but not to an extreme that you would laugh at it. Just enough to highlight facial features that distinguish the actors and actresses. I like it. On the flip-side, the graphics could use more polish. They're very fuzzy in many areas and are a bit too similar to those of the Sierra Quest series of games in ways that a game of this age has no business being like. There's also some amateurish graphical artifacts that disappoint me. During the demo when you're in the car at the crime scene, it's obvious that they use a cube-map to create the 360 degree environment that you are able to rotate yourself within to view and manipulate the scene. Why is it so obvious? Because the borders of the images used to create the cube map are visible as you rotate. Kind of annoying to say the least and kills the immersion factor.

I have two major concerns with this game. The first is the length of the game. A game like this will have no replay value whatsoever. It's like a mystery book. Once you know the butler did it, it's not worth doing again (unless Tim Curry is the butler). When gamers can't have replay value, they demand a superior first-time experience to compensate. Longevity plays a big role in this case in creating that superior experience. In about 15 minutes, I discovered the victim's name, company and job title, interviewed his wife, and interviewed the only eye witness, and submitted several key case items to the lab and research departments. My fear is that this game will be over in an hour or two. After all, how much can you milk a single case that could be probably be wrapped up in the one hour show slot?

My second concern is how much of the game will be thinking and acting versus simply "doing" everything that's possibly available to you until you're told you have all the pieces to proceed. What kind of checks and balances are there? One of the things I was able to do in the game was search a trash bin next to the car where the murder took place. Inside, I found a half-eaten donut, a paper plate, and a crushed soda can. Can I send all these things to the lab for analysis and "accidently" discover a case-cracking clue simply because I was sending EVERYTHING to the lab just because I can? I'd like to be rewarded for thinking things through in this game and would hate to have to employ the dreaded brute force approach to move forward with the case.

As an occasionally self-professed Law & Order junkie guilty of watching too many episodes of the classic series as well as the SVU series, I'd love for this game to succeed and take off. The adventure gaming genre has received a distinct lack of attention for what seems a decade. I think a license of this kind of popularity could do the genre good.