loonyblog.

Hey, neato. Wil Wheaton made a post to his blog about that rediculous NY Post editorial, and he included large excerpts from my letter to the author. Does this mean I’ll ever hear back from the author of that editorial? No, of course not. But as a geek, I still get a kick out of it.

Since I was out sick from work today with not a whole lot to do (besides respond to asinine editorials), I downloaded and tried out Babylon 5: I’ve Found Her, the fan-created space sim which aims to fill the void caused by the cancelation of Babylon 5: Into the Fire back in ‘99. I must admit, I didn’t have particularly high expectations, but wow, this thing is well-made. The SFX in the show were all produced using Lightwave, and technology has progressed enough where the in-game graphics look remarkably like the exact images from the show. If you’re a fan, the first time you see a capital ship in here you’ll be blown away. And there are great little touches, like the way ships snap out of hyperspace as they come through jumpgates.

I’m really not a fan of the genre, so I can’t say how this ranks up against games like Descent: Freespace, Independence War or Freelancer (which has been sitting on my stack for ages now). But just in terms of getting across that B5 feel, it does an excellent job. The only thing that’s been released so far is the “Prequel Campaign” which will tie-in to the eventual full campaign. Don’t let the fact that it’s free fool you…IFH sports full in-game cinematics, voiceover work and music, just like any retail product. And if nothing else, it’s a stunning testament to the dedication of B5 fans.

The official IFH site seems to be down at the moment, but when it’s back you can download it at this URL.

As I said below, I’ve written a letter to Christopher Byron, the author of this NY Post editorial on GTA3 and Vice City. Read on for the whole thing (it’s a big one).

Update: Because this blog is under a Creative Commons license, anyone who wishes to reprint this in part or whole may do so with my permission. See here for more details.

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The most ridiculous editorial on Grand Theft Auto I’ve read to date was published yesterday in the New York Post. Titled Give Back Take Two, this editorial (posing as genuine stock advice) it contains the following, unbelievable statement:

People, this [the violence in GTA: Vice City] is insane. This is 10,000 times worse than the worst thing anybody thinks Michael Jackson ever did to a little boy - or than any lie the feds think Martha Stewart ever told them, or any line in any song that Bruce Springsteen ever sang that rankled a cop in the Meadowlands.

Let’s focus on the first part, since that’s really the shocking bit (the other two are subjective). He says what “anybody thinks Michael Jackson ever did to a little boy” not what he did do. This means we don’t need to worry about facts, and can focus on accusations.

Michael Jackson is charged with seven counts of child molestation. Seven counts. Plus an additional two for using an “intoxicating agent.” Mr. Byron, the author of this article, claims that the violence in GTA: Vice City is 10,000 times worse than nine counts of harm to a child? With all due respect to Mr. Byron, a single count of child molestation is far, far, far worse than anything you’ll find in any video game. That he would claim otherwise is sick and reckless.

I intend to write a letter to Christopher Bryon (cbyron at nypost dot com) and suggest anyone else outraged by this pathetic excuse at financial advice do the same.

One of the more annoying things about having so many electronic devices is that they all use different kinds of media for storing data. My Clie uses Sony’s Memory Stick, my camera uses Compact Flash, Tapwave’s Zodiac uses SD/MMC, and so on. Even with the Missing Sync, getting my Clie’s Memory Stick to mount in OS X is a real pain, and terribly unreliable to boot, and I hate the fact that I can’t charge my camera and download photos at the same time. So I decided to get one of those nifty (and super cheap) USB media readers.

I decided on Belkin’s Hi-Speed 8-in-1 Media Reader because it was cheap, and also because it supports Magic Gate Memory Sticks (not all do). Plus it supports USB 2.0, which although I don’t have on any Macs, I do have on my game PC.

Like any USB media reader, this is a very simple device. It’s very small, smaller than my camera and only slightly thicker than my Clie. It has no moving parts, and consists entirely of an attractive silver and black unit with a type-B USB port on the back. This is a USB 2.0 device, but of course it’s fully backwards compatible.

The “8-in-1″ monicker refers to the fact that it reads CompactFlash I/II, SmartMedia, SD/MMC, IBM Microdrive, Memory Stick/Magic Gate Memory Stick. In reality, that’s just four (Microdrives are just Compact Flash cards). But who cares…it reads everything I need it to. There are no drivers to install (for OS X, anyway), so it’s just plug-in-and-go. Putting in the Memory Stick from my Clie mounted it instantly on my desktop (about three times as fast as the procedure for mounting it while connected to my PDA), and inserting the Compact Flash card from my camera launched iPhoto. Sweeeet.

This is one of those readers that doesn’t plug directly into a USB port, but instead uses a cable. While the ones that go right into a USB port are nice, they’re not at all practical for desktop machines, and the direct kind also tend to only read one or two kinds of media. Plus they tend to be ugly, and this is a nice looking bit of hardware.

And that’s all there is to it. It’s small, attractive, and does what it’s supposed to do. Belkin sells it directly for the obscene price of $59.99, but that’s insane for a device with no moving parts. I was able to pick it up for less than 1/3rd of that price shipped (I got mine from Dell of all places), which is comparable to USB 1.0 media readers. A media reader isn’t something that’s totally necessary, but it is nice and convenient, and this is a darn good one.

ALF is returning to television.

It’s awards season among the various gaming websites around the web. Awards for sites like this serve two primary purposes: on the one hand, you get to inform people of what the best (and occasionally worst) games of the year are. This is a fairly noble thing, and let’s face it, it’s fun to do. The second reason, is much more shameless: awards are great for strengthening ties with developers and publishers, and if you make a nice, print-ready image, you can even get a plug on a Game of the Year re-release (should one ever materialize). Any site that does this and claims not to know anything about the second reason is lying, pure and simple.

At Shacknews, we unveiled our GOTY winners today. Unlike most places, our awards are 100% determined by our readers, which usually leads to some interesting results. We’re going to be publishing the staff top ten lists later in the week (I think), and those should be interesting as well, but they won’t be our formal GOTY winners. Just what each of us believes to be the ten best games they played. Having only played a handful of the winning games, my list will be radically different. And that’s fine. It’ll be an honest list.

Naturally, every other site is unveiling their picks as well this week. GameSpot has an okay setup for themselves: they name the nominees, and then pick a single winner in each category. There are a lot of them, but it’s not too much, and they have their own dubious awards (sort of like the Warshaw Awards over at the Shack).

GameSpy on the other hand, has gone awards crazy. They give out ten awards per platform, plus genre awards, plus specific category awards, plus multiplayer awards, plus an overall GOTY award. And on top of all that, there are still reader’s choice awards. Yeesh. Naturally, every single award, from Best PS2 RPG to Best GBA Remake has its own, highly reproducible image. Which is good to know for that inevitable Rock n’ Roll Racing GOTY Edition.

Non peer-review awards in general don’t carry a lot of merit, but if you’re a third party dedicated to giving out awards, then perhaps it would be wise to exercise a bit of restraint. The reason I never take the Golden Globes seriously is because they are basically just an excuse to hand out as many awards as humanly possible to as many different people as possible. That’s why they have awards for both film and television, plus separate awards for comedy and drama movies. At the Golden Globes there are always two sets of best picture, actor and actress, which means none of it means much of anything (and that’s not even addressing the fact that the Hollywood Foreign Press Association is comprised of what, 30, 40 people?).

Maybe at Shacknews we should start up a set of awards for other websites. There could be the “Most Pointless Awards Award” the “Most Clearly Biased Award” (I’ll happily accept that on behalf of all of my horribly biased LNC posts), the “Sleeziest Download Site Award” and of course, there would have to be the “Most Insane Advertising Campaign” award. Because we all know who would get that.

Apparently the developers massively underestimated the number of people who would be forced out by the proposed new sports complex in Brooklyn. While they originally said that only 100 people would be forced to relocate (which would be a pain, but that’s not too bad), a city legislator said yesterday that as many as 1,000 people would be given the boot. That doesn’t mean it won’t happen, of course…but it’s hard to rationalize making that many people give up their homes. Decisions like that make me glad I have nothing to do with this process. City planning is a delicate balance between ruining the lives of some people while making it better for everyone else. Hopefully if that many people are required to move, they’ll at least be cared for and compensated.

In honor of the non-denominational holiday season, I threw together a goofy little netomat-powered card. Enjoy!

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