Pixel Theories | a gamer getting older...

Killers at WaMu Theatre

Looking forward to the concert tomorrow night. The Killers are one of my favorite bands, and though they've been in the area a couple times in the last six months I've never seen them live. I've heard that WaMu theatre isn't that great but, we've been dying to go to another concert, and she found the tix for fairly cheap.

Has anyone seen a concert here?

Flight Control - Keepin it Simple.

 

Every so often a game sneaks under your radar.  It's generally under promoted, and comes in a different medium than your used to.  And upon discovering it, you rediscover your passion for gaming.  For me that game is Flight Control.

Developed by Firemint Studios for the iPhone, Flight Control puts players in the shoes of an air traffic controller for what has to be the busiest little airport in the world.  As jet planes, propeller planes, and helicopters make their way to your airport, you guide them with your finger to the appropriate runway or helipad.  Initially planes come with little frequency at the beginning, and as you successfully land planes they appear with greater frequency.  The game only ends when your aircrafts collide.

Though I haven't gotten very far, I find myself playing this game whenever I get the chance.  The simplicity enables me the freedom to play at odd times throughout the day.  It's not layered, sophisticated, or of great depth; it's simplicity boxed at ninety-nine cents and worth every damn penny.

KIA & Microsoft want to send you to e3!

It's very simple, at midnight tonight download the gamer picture for entry into the contest. The grandprize winner will win a trip for two to L.A. for e3, 3 grand in cash, home theater system, & a Zune. Oh and a KIA Soul-you know the advert with the mice.

Contest will start in about fifty minutes which should give you plenty of time to check you account info. As they will notify the winner with a phone call via the number that is tied to the gamertag.

I'll spiffy this post with links when I get home, as I can't post the URL to Major's blog, thanks to no "cut & paste" functions on my iPhone.

Majornelson.com

It's not a "Down Year" or a "Sign of the Times."

In approximately 50 days the annual trade show circuit starts in the video game industry.  At that time video game journalists and affluent bloggers from all over the world will start an "amazing race" of their own that will span six months and three countries.  The race starts in Los Angeles with e3 in June, then takes professionals overseas to GAMESCom in Cologne, Germany in August, in September I'll welcome everyone to my backyard for PAX, and the finish line resides in Makuhari Messe with TGS in October.  During these conventions, save PAX, I'll be home constantly scouring the net for info on games to come out in...2010.

That's no typo.  There are only a few highly anticipated games to come out this year; those being God of War 3 (PS3), Halo 3: ODST (Xbox 360), and Modern Warfare 2.  And regardless of what people will say about "the economy," this year's lack of blockbuster titles is only a sign of the bi yearly condition of the market.

Which in turn means that for you, the majority of info that will be dropping this summer will be about annual sports titles, sequels, movie based ip's, and handful of casual games.  The likelihood that anyone of us laymen will be able to see raw gameplay footage will be towards the second half of the trade circuit at PAX and TGS.  Publishers, and the big 3, will use e3 and GAMESCom to show behind the scenes footage, talk about future hardware, and announce games that will come out in 2010.

This doesn't mean that the year is a waste, only an optimal time for you to get geared up for 2010.  And that may sound like a lame thing to say.  But consider the plethora of games that came out from the end of 2008 till March 2009.  Can you honestly say that you've played every worthwhile title in that time frame?

I know I can't.

Use the next 8 months as a pivotal time to catch up on the backlog of games left from years of past.  Or use the time to build a game with Blender, XNA, or Flash.  Now's a perfect opportunity not to get distracted.

Free codes a comin'

Watch my Twitter for free XBL 1 Month and 48 hour codes starting later tonight!

Emerald City Comicon Day 2 - Halo Panel & the Wares

Upon arriving at nearly 11:15 on day 2, I decided that I'd get to The Halo Panel early.  I guess i figured that it would be packed -- I was wrong. 

I just happened to be siting in on Sunday Conversation with Ian Sattler; what I was sitting in on was a passionate convo about "trades vs. issues."  The dialog was interesting with industry professionals not only on the panel but also in the audience.  Basically readers were concerned with the content of most issues and confessing that they buy trades instead of individual issues so that they feel that their purchase is justified.  In agreement the insiders divulged that sometimes issues are crossed over, or intersecting stories to give additional background to characters per demand.  Overall the discussion was an eyeopener, I can see both sides of the argument, and really this is the kind of issue that can't be solved in fifty minutes.

The Halo Panel started at about three minutes late,  Frankie, Eric Rabb (Senior Editor for Tor Books), Kevin Grace (Microsoft Games Studio’s Managing Editor), and Greg Bear (Author of Halo novels 7 thru 9) take the stage.  Initially, Frankie talks about H3:OD ST, and future Halo properties, then he introduces Greg Bear.  Then we get into the nitty gritty, Frankie announces that Greg Bear will be the next author of the Halo Series.  The Seventh Halo novel will begin a trilogy of novels about the Forerunners; with the first novel to come out in 2010.  Before  continuing we also are informed of a Halo Encyclopedia that will be a catch all for the Halo Universe to be released in November 2009.

Bear, has a history with sci-fi, he's been writing for at least the last 26 years and has won and been nominated for several awards.  I was impressed with his initial thoughts about writing for Halo especially his thoughts about having a "classic sci-fi opportunity."  Even when he said that "it's gonna be fun..." I never had the feeling that he was either putting on a show or interested in cashing a check.  Bear seems to have a genuine interest in writing for Halo and that puts my mind at ease.  To put the book end, pun very much intended, to the novel discussion Frankie adds that the new trilogy of books won't ruin the mystery of the Forerunners.

Forgive me.  I should've had a notepad, but I only had my iPhone so my notes are...well...shorthanded.  Thus the result of my Q & A note taking is basically a summary of a few questions that were relevant of posting.  The "ZOMG Halo is awesome!!" comments/questions were not taken.

Q: Are there any plans to reintroduce "the Chief, Blue/Katana teams, or Catherine Halsey" in future games or books?

A: We will not discuss any future games today.  But as Halo is an ongoing franchise, we will address what happens to the aforementioned characters in the future.

Q: Are they any more races to be discovered in The Covenant?

A: In short, doubtful.

Q: The Flood consumes intelligent beings and sustainable bio mass, were there any other sentient life forms that may have survived the first firing of the Halos?  (Impressive Q from what must've been an 8 year old).

A: I don't know (wink, wink).

Q: Why did you release Halo MEGA bloks?

A: Demand from the community.

Q: What about the Peter Jackson project?

A: P.J. is a nice guy (Frankie says it almost giggling), but we're not discussing any future video game projects today.

What ensues after the above questions is a long discussion about amateur screenplay writers and Halo.  But Frankie is quick to point out that Halo may be "too big" a project for any movie to encapsulate it.  Additionally, the whole panel gets a little off-topic and more of what is discussed are things left on the cutting room floor during production of H2 (don't worry, there were no details).  And before we knew it the panel was over before anyone could reference or discuss H3:ODST.  And yeah, I am partly to blame for that, as I thought it would be addressed, and I never got in line.

The rest of the day was spent looking at more art on floor of the Con.  More or less I spent my time looking for any copies of American Flagg and I only found 1, Issue #33 (flickr will come later) & finding trades at the 50% off booths.  I did manage to score trades of 1602, Secret Invasion, & The House of M.  All of this will be update later on flickr.  If you have any Q's about the Con, or feel I missed something, please reply.  I am more than willing to talk about the Con, or any aspect of what I've left out.  There was a bunch of free "S" that I got, that will also be on the flickr later tonight.

Emerald City Comicon Day 1 - the preview.

I'm not the comic book nerd I use to be.  But not for the lack of love, mostly it has been a cost effective decision.  I really couldn't afford the price tag after a certain point.  Sure I still loved comics, but that was part of the problem.  I liked too many characters, all with their own books, thus being a collector, or even an avid fan became expensive fairly quickly.  At that same time, video games started to fill that void.

Now, I shop at Half Price Books, looking for "trades" or graphic novels of the story arcs of my favorite heroes. And though it's hard to wrap my head around what has happened to these familiar friends, being nearly a decade and a half removed, I find that I am just as interested as I was all those years ago.

So upon arriving at my first ever ECCC, I was...overwhelmed.    This really was an unexpected trip, as I had my two sisters visiting for the weekend.  I wasn't sure that they'd have fun at the Con, but after a short description of the Con piqued their interest, I figured "what the hell."

Before we made it to ticket registration we were greeted by a young couple and their son.  They noticed that we had not paid and upon confirmation, they gave us their Saturday passes.  Stunned and sixty dollars richer, I perused the booths of ECCC, admiring the old comic panels, cosplayers, and artists, while my siblings gathered a plethora of free buttons.

The WSCC is perfectly suited to host this event.  As the seventh annual ECCC doesn't feel that crowded or insane as PAX does.  I love my PAX, but I must admit it that it might be too big.  This Con is smaller, more intimate and at the same time as informative and fun as some of the other conventions I've attended.  Though this day would mean no panels (the discussion kind), I deduced that today would be a good day to see what I'd want to purchase tomorrow.

I spent the majority of the day taking pics with the phone (I really need a DSLR).  I managed to get pictures of a mini Hellboy/Abe Sapien duo, the Ghostbutsers, and various Star Wars characters (the flickr will be updated tomorrow).

I did manage to find an old X-Men panel from the early 90's with Colossus, Wolvie, and Gambit.  I can't remember what issue the panel was from, but it was definitely "Uncanny" material.  I didn't pull the trigger as I thought that this panel would be here on Sunday and I really didn't have anything for keeping the panel intact during transit. 

We only spent two hours on Saturday, we got there at 2pm and I had to work late the night before.  Really though it was all my fault for waking up late.  With an understanding of the layout of ECCC and an idea of what I might want to purchase, we packed  up and headed home.

Coming tomorrow:
- flickr update.
- Halo panel details.
- My wares.
- More ECCC

Kotaku Cronies Strike Criticism of Community Games

Kotaku's Luke Plunkett took the now infamous analysis of community games by GamerBytes two days ago, and made the assessment that XBLA community games "don't sell and don't make money."  Well not to be a prick, but that would seem like a fairly obvious sentiment to anyone who has read the article.  In fact, it's flat out crap journalism like this that has polarized those who read Kotaku.  You either love them, or you hate them.

You can probably already guess which camp I'm in.  Kotaku's pis poor fact checking, their lack of respect for bloggers with smaller readerships, and their use of aliases, has tarnished what was originally a nice newsblog.  Unfortunately, Brian Crecente and his merry band of trigger-typing morons have nothing to offer readers in the form of self created content.  Rather, Kotaku has turned into a blog that relies on it's tipsters to inspire articles that generate readership.  And I use the term blog lightly, because like it or not, Kotaku has propelled to the level of aggregate readership that parallels IGN, GameSpot, &  blog-like counterparts like Joystiq & Destructoid.  Though technically these latter mentioned webs fit the blog look, their behind the scenes access to devs & their content literally take them out of the definition of a "blog."

I'm not bitter, but when I see the obvious the last thing I do is blog about it.  Which brings me back to the topic at hand; community games that are made by gamers for gamers is a new realm.  Often when breaking new ground or developing new trends, very few positives come from these avenues.  In fact, when introducing new features such as community games; we'll most likely learn more lessons from what was done incorrectly. 

For example, think of XBLA back with the original Xbox, there were few titles, and the purchasing of those games was a pain.  Microsoft learned from this mistake and retooled XBLA for the 360, which I might now add is a success.

Are people really going to download titles like 360 Calculator?  No.  Will homebrew developers start to get a better idea of what it'll take to survive as a small time influence on the industry?  Yes. 

Right now, Microsoft is still trying to figure out how community games will be viable as a long term profitable business solution.  Say what you want, there is a market for homebrew games on retail consoles.  However, the method for it's delivery and the marketing behind it, is just something that Microsoft will have to figure out as time goes on.

It's just unfortunate that some journalists don't have the ability to read into what their writing about, rather than just typing up short sarcastic linear essay.

Seattle Blogger Hints at More than New Halo Book?!

I just stumbled onto a local blogger while getting my domain posted at Seattle Weblogs.  I found 8bitjoystick, run by a local gamer, Jake, who reportedly has an inside source that believes there will be more leaked at The Halo Panel than the author of the latest Halo novel at ECCC this Sunday.

Jake cites that Frank O'Connor's (Director for the Halo Franchise Development for Microsoft Game Studios) appearance at ECCC signifies that there will be a major announcement.  Which could by all means be true; he's the guy who travels with the demo teams from LA to Leipzig, spoon feeding the press the info that needs to get relayed to us - the end users.  However, he's also the guy that keeps everyone in check when it comes to what Haloesque info stays behind the curtain so to speak.  And his appearance at ECCC could just be to serve as a check valve to verbally bitch slap any new and upcoming author/panel member, who drops a little too much info in the Q & A.

To his credit Jake broke the news on that Bungie was splitting from Microsoft.  Additionally this blogger has used geography in his favor to score an interview with Marty O'Donnell.  All of which makes me favor what he has to say a little more than the cowpie rumors that I read off of Kotaku.

I'll be at the panel so expect a report on what info drops Sunday on my Twitter.  But I should note that Jake, has gotten rights to record and will have a mp3 of the panel sometime Sunday night.

Either way, we'll at least know more about the seventh Halo novel.

Sporcle

One of my wife's favorite webs is Sporcle.  This little trivia web poses a question, and tasks users with typing all possible answers before a time runs out.  Really hadn't played any of it myself.  That was until a few days ago when my wife turned me on to this latest addition; name the 80's video games.

I got 21/30.  I'm sure you can do better.