Submission + - Professor Layton and the Curious Twitter Accounts (crispygamer.com)
Ssquared22 writes: ""Frankly ... I'm ashamed. I have made myself a Twitter page and officially joined the world of technology. Perhaps Luke may help me update."
With those words on June 29, 2009, what had been just a fictional character in a Nintendo DS game became a fixture on Twitter. Over the coming days and weeks, the TopHatProfessor account would post dozens of riddles and brainteasers of the type found in 2008's Professor Layton and the Curious Village and the upcoming Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box , soliciting answers from his slowly growing cadre of followers. Along the way, the professor happily answered questions about the upcoming title and shared little slices of life from his day, all without ever breaking character.
Many followers were bemused and intrigued by what they assumed was a clever new viral marketing campaign put on by Nintendo ahead of Diabolical Box's August release. In reality, though, the TopHatProfessor account was the work of a lone college student and amateur game journalist, trying to get attention for a game he felt was being sorely neglected by publisher Nintendo and the media at large."
With those words on June 29, 2009, what had been just a fictional character in a Nintendo DS game became a fixture on Twitter. Over the coming days and weeks, the TopHatProfessor account would post dozens of riddles and brainteasers of the type found in 2008's Professor Layton and the Curious Village and the upcoming Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box , soliciting answers from his slowly growing cadre of followers. Along the way, the professor happily answered questions about the upcoming title and shared little slices of life from his day, all without ever breaking character.
Many followers were bemused and intrigued by what they assumed was a clever new viral marketing campaign put on by Nintendo ahead of Diabolical Box's August release. In reality, though, the TopHatProfessor account was the work of a lone college student and amateur game journalist, trying to get attention for a game he felt was being sorely neglected by publisher Nintendo and the media at large."
Cable Management To Defeat Clutter? 323
igny writes "I have just recently cleaned up my home office, reducing the clutter, but I could not come up with a neat solution to my cable problem. I believe my cable usage is even below average for a slashdotter, but still I have three computers with a bunch of ethernet and power cables, two cellphones, video and photo cables, with several proprietary chargers/AC adapters, printer, two NASes with a couple of external drives, phone, audio system, routers/switches, modem ... Everything requires cables of different kinds. I believe that AC adapters still draw some power even with no device hooked to it. So I organized my power cables by usage with several power strips to turn off adapters which I use less frequently. I am asking for advice from experienced slashdotters. How do you cope with your cable problem? Do you use dedicated tables, shelves, armoire for the cables? I am still looking for a neat, efficient, and safe (I have small kids) solution."
Even Faster Web Sites 171
Michael J. Ross writes "Slow Web page loading can discourage visitors to a site more than any other problem, regardless of how attractive or feature-rich the given site might be. Consequently, many Web developers hope to achieve faster response times using AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML), since only portion(s) of an AJAX page need to be reloaded. But for many rich Internet applications (RIAs), such potential performance gains can be lost as a result of non-optimized JavaScript, graphics, and CSS files. Steve Souders — a Web performance expert previously at Yahoo and now with Google — addresses these topics in his second book, Even Faster Web Sites: Performance Best Practices for Web Developers." Read on for the rest of Michael's review.
Music Game Genre On the Decline 225
After enjoying several years of popularity, music games seem to be drawing less and less interest from gamers lately. Guitar Hero and Rock Band titles have been conspicuously absent from a list of the 20 best-selling software titles in the past two months, and one report estimates that revenue from those games has dropped by almost half. Analyst Jesse Divnich suggests that there's no longer much room for dramatic improvements in game play, saying, "it would be erroneous to assume that any franchise or brand can grow unless it brings something new to the table. After a while, utility to the gamer will diminish and he/she will surely move on." Nevertheless, the companies are happy to continue to rely on DLC sales while working on new releases. Harmonix is showing off a trailer and a partial set list for The Beatles: Rock Band, and Neversoft has detailed a number of new features and tracks for Guitar Hero 5.
Sam Raimi To Direct World of Warcraft Movie 298
Decado writes "Blizzard has just announced that Sam Raimi is to direct the new World of Warcraft movie. 'Raimi, acclaimed director of the blockbuster Spider-Man series, will bring the forces of the Horde and the Alliance to life in epic live-action film. Charles Roven's Atlas Entertainment will produce alongside Raimi's Stars Road Entertaiment.' While it's still early in the process, does this offer hope that someone might finally make a good movie based on a game IP?"
Submission + - Game Developers Should Shut Up About Used Games (crispygamer.com) 1
Ssquared22 writes: "If that feels like a rip off to some, you've got to admit that you can certainly tell that paying $30 for Gears of War 2 sure beats paying $60!
You may not like it, but people are going to trade in used games for new games and those old games will be sold back to new people looking to play the original game. There's nothing game developers can do to stop them and companies like Gamestop continue to laugh all the way to the bank. In an article at Crispy Gamer, David Thomas (no relation!) dissects one of the most critical issues in gaming today: used games and merchants (online and brick-and-mortar) who specialize in this "sleight of hand"."
You may not like it, but people are going to trade in used games for new games and those old games will be sold back to new people looking to play the original game. There's nothing game developers can do to stop them and companies like Gamestop continue to laugh all the way to the bank. In an article at Crispy Gamer, David Thomas (no relation!) dissects one of the most critical issues in gaming today: used games and merchants (online and brick-and-mortar) who specialize in this "sleight of hand"."
Bookmark Crispy's Mid-Season Videogame All-Stars: Our Top Picks for 2009 So Far (crispygamer.com)
Bookmark Bill Murray Does Voiceover on Commodore 64 Ghostbusters (crispygamer.com)
Bookmark Review: Wolfenstein 3D (360) (diehardgamefan.com)
Bookmark Video Hook-Up: N.A.S.A. - âoeA Voltaâ (radioexile.com)
Bookmark E3 2009 Unawards (crispygamer.com)
Submission + - Eight Videogame Places You're Not Supposed to Go (crispygamer.com) 1
Ssquared22 writes: The eight far-off realms in this article exist for different reasons. They could be developer test areas, or forgotten pieces of landscape that somehow made their way into the final code. Whatever their reason for being, they all have one thing in common: They weren't meant to be explored by the likes of you and me. But through persistence, hacks or some combination of the two, you can take in these rare delights for yourself. Pack your bags.
Comment Re:Non-Gregorian, non-Tibetan Chanting (Score 1) 57
None of that was Gregorian chanting.
No, the soundtrack that accompanies the advance copies has the chanting, this is some crazy mouth harp stuff. My bad if that was misleading.
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