Come to tonight's WCG Ultimate Gamer, which features EA's latest hockey game, for the embarrassing freak-out overreaction from an unlikely contestant. But stay for the behind-the-scenes scheming. Finally! Tonight's episode has more behind-the-scenes scheming than all the episodes from last season combined. Not that I'm convinced anything effective comes of it. In fact, I still can't figure out what the plan was supposed to be. These guys might be gamers, but they're as bad at gaming the competition as they are at being likeable.
However, as Hannah observes at one point, "I feel like whoever comes back from Samsung Stadium tonight, it's going to change the dynamics in this house." Indeed.
Finally, tonight's episode reinforces something I've always suspected: hockey, virtual or otherwise, is the worst excuse for a spectator sport since soccer.
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Igniq.com has posted an interesting look at the
vast cost difference between purchasing a pre-built, high end gaming PC or building one yourself. Of course, even those who don't tinker inside their own PCs knows that a home-built rig is usually cheaper than a retail counterpart, but it might surprise you to learn just how
much cheaper.
Igniq's Gary McKeon priced the various components he would need to build a top-of-the-line gaming rig. With a quad core 3.07GHz processor, beefy graphics card and loads of RAM, his PC clocks in at just under $2,400. Not cheap, to be sure, but an
Alienware PC with similar specs would cost nearly twice as much at
over $4,600.
The lesson here: If you need the best gaming PC around, you can save
a lot of money by building it yourself (or finding someone to do it for you). Unless you just
need a little alien head on your PC case, of course.
The benefits of building your own gaming PC originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 26 Aug 2010 00:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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You know how I know I'm not addicted to Starcraft II, even though I've played several matches a day since it came out? Because I can quit any time. That's how I know I'm not addicted.
However, for people who aren't so lucky, some doctors in South Korea have published a study claiming that they can reduce a person's addiction to Starcraft II -- and videogames in general -- with a drug called Bupropion traditionally used to help people kick drugs or quit smoking. An abstract of the study is here. A good layman's breakdown is here, where it explains that researchers measured the results by hooking subjects up to an MRI scan and showing them a picture of a Zergling.
Bupropion. Heh. It sounds like something a Zerg larva can morph into. In fact, I bet massed Mutalisks, Banelings, and Bupropions would be a pretty effective counter to a Terran mech strategy. By the way, did I mention that I'm not addicted? The thing about quitting any time? Did I mention that? I did? Okay. Is Bupropion over-the-counter?
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It seems games are seeping even further into our education system. We've already reported the inclusion of
Portal in the coursework at Wabash College, and now we learn that the University of Florida is
offering a class in
StarCraft -- 21st Century Skills in
Starcraft (EME2040). The course, taught by doctoral student Nathaniel Poling, uses Blizzard's classic RTS to impart students with skills in the areas of "critical thinking, problem solving, resource management, and adaptive decision making."
Poling told
Technology Review that
StarCraft requires players to manage "a lot of different units and groups of different capacities," a skill that translates in real world business. The course -- the university's first fully online class -- requires students to play the game, watch recorded matches, and write papers "which emphasize analysis and synthesis of real/game-world concepts." Oh, the class also has no final exam and
does count toward a student's GPA. In other words:
enroll in this class now.
[Thanks, Kai]
StarCraft features in University of Florida's '21st Century Skills' course originally appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 24 Aug 2010 12:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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What if the South hadn't lost the Civil War? Imagine if the United States had developed as two separate countries, divided in war and cultivating long resentments over the decades. Now imagine the two countries playing Starcraft II with each other. Plus the Union has some weird hang-up about Kerrigan's wings.
A site called China Geeks has posted a fascinating selection of reactions to Starcraft II in China, particularly among mainland Chinese players joining Taiwanese servers....the perceptions of Chinese gamers outside of China has led to strong prejudices, especially in Taiwan, whose servers are often populated with large numbers of Mainland players looking to get in on the action.
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Last year's WCG Ultimate Gamer, sponsored by World Cyber Games, Samsung, and - full disclosure! - my overlords at Syfy, was a real guilty pleasure for me. Reality TV is so cheesy, and I'm totally above that sort of thing, until I'm actually watching it. At which point, yeah, you can bet I'm hanging on whatever's going to happen in the next episode. What of it? To quote Ben Stiller in Greenberg*, "You have to see past the kitsch."
I still can't believe Mark won last year. But now that the second season of WCG Ultimate Gamer is starting tonight, he's technically only the Penultimate Gamer.
I've seen the first episode of the new season, and at this point, the contestants are a cipher to me. You can tell they've been pre-loaded for maximum drama, including a contrived "don't call me 'homie'" cat fight based on some indeterminate personal histories. Is it fair that three of the contestants already know each other? And what are we supposed to infer from "know"? I'm still mostly at the "I can't believe they picked him/her for the show!" stage, but I can predict who I'm going to loathe (Ryan, Vanessa, probably Yaz) and who I'm going to warm up to (Kat, Justin, maybe Jake). I'm pretty sure they phoned Central Casting for AJ and Faye. Hannah and Joel are back, looking as out of place as ever. And every time Joel is onscreen, I'm reminded that I should probably be watching Arrested Development** again instead of some cheesy reality TV show. Come on! But it's so entertaining to see the drama spun out of two people desperately button-mashing their way through Tekken 6.
Check your local listings for the season premiere. Or just Tivo it. You know you want to.
* How's that for establishing my credibility as someone with discriminating taste who should be above reality TV?
** And again!
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Canadian Xbox users now have a
new service on the Dashboard, "Xbox News." Surprisingly, instead of gaming news, the video program offers up "entertainment, human interest, tech, gadget, auto and unique" news stories from Microsoft's MSN. The first episode certainly doesn't offer up hard-hitting news, instead dishing out stories about human dominoes and a paintball facility invaded by bears.
... on second thought, that
is hard-hitting news. You can never be too careful with bears. New episodes will be posted to the Canadian Xbox dashboard each evening but, just because it's you, you can watch the first episode after the break.
[Thanks,
Steve]
Continue reading Canadian 'Xbox News' dashboard app is devoid of Xbox news
Canadian 'Xbox News' dashboard app is devoid of Xbox news originally appeared on Joystiq on Wed, 18 Aug 2010 03:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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The New York Times reports on the results of a University of Washington study to compare the results of videogamers and software algorithms when it comes to the complex protein folding puzzles in a freeware videogame.In a comparison involving 10 separate protein-folding puzzles, video game players matched the results generated by software solutions in three of the puzzles, outperformed them in five cases and found significantly better solutions in two others, according to the scientists.
Now that we've beat computers when it comes to chess and science, what's next?In the future [study author Zoran Popovic] hopes to offer a portal of science-oriented games leveraging a larger pool of human players. Other possible problems include the development of "packing" algorithms -- finding ways to pack cargo on airplanes more efficiently -- and a whistle-blower game that might use recently available data on government spending in Brazil to look for corruption.
I don't know about poring over Brazilian budgets, but having played both Shenmue (pictured) and Tetris, I'm pretty sure I could pack a cargo jet like you wouldn't believe.
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The New York Times reports on the results of a University of Washington study to compare the results of videogamers and software algorithms when it comes to the complex protein folding puzzles in a freeware videogame.In a comparison involving 10 separate protein-folding puzzles, video game players matched the results generated by software solutions in three of the puzzles, outperformed them in five cases and found significantly better solutions in two others, according to the scientists.
Now that we've beat computers when it comes to chess and science, what's next?In the future [study author Zoran Popovic] hopes to offer a portal of science-oriented games leveraging a larger pool of human players. Other possible problems include the development of "packing" algorithms -- finding ways to pack cargo on airplanes more efficiently -- and a whistle-blower game that might use recently available data on government spending in Brazil to look for corruption.
I don't know about poring over Brazilian budgets, but having played both Shenmue (pictured) and Tetris, I'm pretty sure I could pack a cargo jet like you wouldn't believe.
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I'm not sure what to make of the above picture. It confuses my childhood, kind of like one of those weird dreams where I conflate my mother and my first girlfriend. You probably didn't need to hear that.
See more here. Of the Mario/Star Wars mash-up artwork, not that other thing I said.
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