Armchair Diplomat

Not to give the contest away, but at least be pre-warned

Anyone who has played both inFamous and Prototype is inexplicably drawn to compare the two and which one is better.  Yahtzee from The Escapist was no exception.  When reviewing the two games, he found it difficult to choose one as being superior, so he jokingly proposed a challenge to the games’ prospective developers to decide the winner.  Given the site’s popularity, he probably shouldn’t have been surprised when both developers agreed to participate.

And the results just came in.

Oh dear.

Oh me, oh my.

Let’s just say that it’s an art contest.  I’ll leave you to discover the rest yourselves.

Rock Band players enjoy Coke(tm)! See the Coke(tm) side of life!

So in a forthcoming update for Xbox Live, users will be downloading Silverlight capability for their Live interactions.  Sounds good?  Think again.  Apparently the primary reasoning behind delivering Microsoft’s Flash counterpart to your system will be to introduce advertising to your dashboard.

That’s right, get ready for EVEN MORE advertisement to infiltrate your system!

Apparently not only is it good enough for ads for Xmen Origins: Wolverine to be smeared all over your copy of Guitar Hero 3 for no apparent reason, you’ll now also be serviced with ads by just switching the damn machine on.

Prepare for a PlayStation fanboy rush, Xbox users.  Start populating those Terran bunkers.

Either way, after a few days of speculation around different sites, our foremost public face of Live, Major Nelson, has spoken out about the issue.

One of our core principles is to enhance, not interfere with the gaming experience, and we work directly with our partners to only deliver experiences that are relevant to the LIVE community. Silverlight will help make those ads a more organic part of the dashboard, like we’ve done with some of the NXE slots in the past. No one on the team wants to turn the dashboard into something that looks like like Shibuya Crossing.

-Major Nelson tries to set some minds at ease

A lot of users are understandably annoyed, especially those who pay their monthly rates for Live Gold.  The very odd juxtaposition of both paying for a service and being loaded up with marketing at the same time sits uneasily in the stomach.  I wouldn’t be surprised if we begin hearing more about this around the internet, but for the time being it looks as if it’s inevitable.

A rather amusing tale of litigation, care of Kotaku.  After having Sony settle out of court, Microsoft is the one remaining company still being sued over it’s online game interaction.  The suit is being pressed over a patent filed in 1994, here’s the details:

In 1991, Peter Hochstein and Jeffrey Tenenbaum came up with the idea of communicating live while playing the same video game in separate locations. They patented the technology for doing so in 1994. In 2002, Microsoft released Xbox Live, a gaming service that also allows users to communicate while playing the same game. Sony also released similar capabilities for PlayStation 2. In 2004, Hochstein, Tenenbaum and Harold Milton, Jr. (an assignee of the patent) brought a patent infringement suit against Microsoft and Sony alleging that the voice and data communications technology used in the gaming systems infringed on the patent claims.

Being Microsoft, they’ve dropped some fairly lulzy stunts on the case to tie it up (including dropping 140,000 “relevant” documents on Hochenstein and Tenenbaum, sans-index), but in the process have drawn a lot of heat from the court for their obvious stalling.  Apparently this may have cost them dearly, because it sounds as if the court is out of patience and may force a resolution soon.

Now while I’ll agree that MS and Sony should be paying up for any variety of patent infringement, it also seems like this is kind of a cash in measure on the part of the plaintiff.  It’s kind of akin to someone long ago pantenting the idea of reading books with coffee, then many years later suing a Borders store.

Actually, we’ve been looking for ways to finance the site recently.  And Borders HAVE been increasing their Australian stakehold.

Hmmmmmmmmm ……

You can read the whole article over at Patent Arcade.

Now all I need is a internet bar fridge and I NEED NEVER LEAVE THE COUCH AGAIN

Now while the recent purchase of my very own laptop has seen me tied to my couch even more than usual, to be fair at least I do swap the keyboard for a controller every hour or so (it’s my evening exercise routine).  Which is why I’m so impressed that now not even my field of vision has to leave the couch any more!

Benjamin J Heckendorn, owner of a strong name and case modding genius, has recently completed Revision 5 on his Portable Xbox 360.  Combining all the fun of an Xbox and the convenient portable nature of a laptop, it’s a testament to geek-envy.  Alongside the compact-fold up screen and console combo, this revision also features:

• Built-in Ethernet port and Wi-fi adapter
• Push button volume control.
• Flush-mounted DVD tray.
• IR sensor for the remote control.
• Two user USB ports.
• Speed holes (the make the car go faster!)

A font of infinite awesome.  And while you’re checking out the site, don’t forget to have a squiz at the equally cool Commodore 64 laptop.  Daaaaaaymn.

Just a quick post: We’re entering the final stages of our basic site setup.  Bone is currently working on finalising the review visuals, and I the system.  It’ll be a basic ranking out of 5 system, detailing pros & cons, with a thumbs up, thumbs down or the morally ambiguous “thumbs middle”.

Also still to come will be basic user accounts.  I’m still in favour of making comments easy to toss out there, but just so there’s no impersonation going on we really need to make names link to accounts.  This will also support our ability later to have contests, given that we know accounts will have verified emails.  Mark’ll be looking in to this soon.

After all that’s done with, we’ve one more super secret section of the site that’s yet to be completed (details closer to completion), and then we’ll be done with our Armchair Diplomat v1 rollout.

From there, well, Mark wants to get his hands dirty with code and begin a site resculpt.  I kinda agree with him, as while I do love our current set up and colour scheme, the theme we’re currently using is a bit clumsy and prone to visual/alignment bugs.  That’s still a while away however, so you can get used to the look of things for the time being.  If you do find any bugs in the site, by all means drop a comment (any post is fine, I read them all) and let us know, I’ll get the coding monkey Mark to take a look!

More details as things progress, folks!

Sigh, rhyming headlines, I must have my news hat on too tight today.  Nevertheless, details coming straight-outta-Joystiq today, talking about Xbox Live’s integration with Last.Fm.

The service was announced at this year’s E3, including linking up Facebook and Twitter to Live.  Apparently the Last.Fm service will be free but contain ads for Gold accounts, and there will be 3 hour trials for Silver users.

Silver users will be able access what we’re considering a trial period of three hours a month, which comes with video advertising. Gold users will have unlimited ad-supported access, so they can use it 24 hours a day. There will also be a premium offering on a subscription basis from Last.fm, that will be commercial free and will also have more sophisticated personalization features, like Loved Tracks.

-Christina DeRosa, general manager with XBL

The premium service is an additional subscription fee that will be paid directly to Last.fm.  Using the service via Live will still require a registered Last.fm account.  Check out the whole article.

I can only assume this one came about by either chance Googling or a misprinted article, but according to a recent marriage announcement in the New York Times, Lionhead’s Fable 3 could already be in the early stages of production.

Mr. Atkins, 34, is the lead game designer for Fable III, a video game series produced by Lionhead Studios in Guildford, England. He graduated from the University of California, Santa Cruz.

-New York Times, 26th of June

If it’s true, then it’s the most amusing place I’ve seen a rumour come out of in a little while. Given that I still haven’t played Fable 2 however (residual bad feelings over the first), the news hasn’t really excited me much. Maybe it’s time to give it a chance, I’m sure hundreds of copies are probably clogging up pre-owned shelves at the moment.

Given that Molyneux has stated in the past that they have plans for Fable 3, 4 and 5, it’s probably safe to say that this isn’t just rumour, but as no-one has made an official announcement yet, we’ll stick this one as “highly probable”.  An even better rumour would be that players take the role of 11 year old Milo in Fable 3, and you battle enemies for PR domination … but I just made that up.  To the hashtags!

Anyhoo, read the announcement for yourself. And don’t forget to congratulate the happy couple!

Dr Dre isn't the only one who's strapped with Ghat

QUICK PLUG: Before I begin this particular review, I’ll drop some props to Colin Robinson and the fine folk over at GamerLimit who put this game up for grabs in their cover art contest. Many thanks!

Zeno Clash is a first person shooter style game produced by independant studio Ace Team. It’s a game very much in the vein of the BioShock titles, where the story elements, setting and visual-direction really set it apart from the rest of the genre.

The plot is a little difficult to describe, as Zeno Clash takes place in a completely original world called Zenozoik. Players take the role of Ghat, who regains conciousness after a fight in which he killed his family’s parent Father-Mother. He shows no remorse over the fact, so assumedly he had his reasons, but realises that he has to flee the city to escape his siblings’ vengence. Accompanying Ghat is Deadra, a female who assists his escape, and from then on assists Ghat in combat. The events leading up to the fight with Father-Mother are then retold in a series of flashbacks.  Many of the flashbacks also contain small clues to allow the player to piece together the full story.  Not everything gets explained, and the ending is rather open-ended, but it’s definitely well told.

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For all our Australian readers (Victorians in particular), this piqued my interest when I read it on Twitter: The crew over at OzBoxLive are helping to organise a fundraiser called “Xperience Xbox” to take place at the Victorian State Library.

All the proceeds are going towards the Royal Children’s Hospital. Entry is free, and raffles will be held through the night with prizes and giveaways.

Me and Mark already have our spots reserved. After all, of the many places we’ve played Xbox, could any of them be as classy as the State Library? The answer is no, of course.

The event takes place on the 17th of July, from 6.30 through to 9pm. Raffles and games throughout the night. To book your place, pop over to the event site, and we’ll see you there! As much credit as we can to OzBoxLive also, for helping to set up this shindig!

Even reading about Jack Russells, he's awesome

I’ve always been a great admirer of Matt Berry, ever since I saw my first episode of The Mighty Boosh. His bizarre sense of humour combined with his rich, expressive voice are a winning combination for the screen. But of the many projects I’ve enjoyed him in, I’d never have realised one of them would be a music album.

I bought Matt Berry’s Opium on one of the many recommendations Amazon seems to assault you with every time you log in to have a browse around. On this occasion, having logged on to see if Season 3 of The IT Crowd had been released on DVD yet, Opium was sitting on my list of recommendations.

Having seen Snuff Box (and loved every wierd-arse moment of it), I knew Berry was a composer and singer, but didn’t know he’d made an album. I love the theme to Snuff Box, it’s a mind worm of a song. You can be sitting anywhere and break out humming it. And while I’m loathe to validate Amazon’s many attempts at cross-promoting, it sounded far too cool not to buy. So about a week and half later (importing, eh?) it arrived and I’ve been listening to it this week.

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