Mssv

BBC Gamesblog - What the hell? The BBC has just created a games weblog. Are they trying to make minisites on every subject? In any case, as much as I like the BBC, they will have to be crushed by GamesFilter when it comes online (probably at the beginning of March, to coincide with the [...]

I can tell a person’s personality by their face and watching them for a couple of minutes; this is something that I’ve believed quite strongly for a long time. And finally I’ve been proven conclusively - and pleasantly - wrong.
There’s a tendency for people to try and ease their brain’s processing load while judging the [...]

There’s been a bit of a ruckus on MetaFilter recently regarding a journalist, Laurie Garrett, who attended the World Economic Forum and sent an email to her friends filled with her personal thoughts an speculations about the conference. The email was of course not intended for publication, but this being the 21st century and what [...]

I recently bought the Back To The Future trilogy DVD set from eBay - it arrived in a slightly bizarre piece of packaging which made me suspect it was pirated, but it turns out that it’s the official Australian version of the DVD set (Region 2 and 4 compatible). Managed to save a few pounds [...]

Geeks Without Borders - a mildly interesting article by Steven ‘Emergence’ Johnson at Slate, about immersive fiction games and related genres. Quite positive, for a change.

BBC started showing the second season of 24 on Sunday. Here are my thoughts on the first two episodes (I watch the first at a friend’s room, and then we sprinted across to the college TV room to catch the next on BBC 3):
Kim is just as irritating as she always has been, and appears [...]

This Is Not a Game: Collective Subjectivity and Immersive Entertainment - a paper by Janes McGonigal at UC Berkeley. Seems interesting, although I find its comparisons between drug-taking and immersive gaming to be a little sensationalist, but perhaps worthwhile in some way. I’ll take a proper look later today. Jane is no stranger to immersive [...]

What with yet another release of a MetaFilter engine clone, I’ve gone and registered gamesfilter.com. It’s not active yet, and probably won’t be for a while until I’ve experimented with various engines, but eventually I hope to turn it into a MetaFilter-esque forum for interesting and breaking news regarding massively multiplayer online games. And let [...]

With the image of immersive fiction games becoming increasingly negative, and the competiton to attract players for massively multiplayer online games becoming increasingly fierce, how can the genre survive? Other than improved content and organisation, it needs to use new technologies and modes of thinking to its full advantage, and the prize is creating a new form of entertainment.

An illustrated speculative timeline of future technology and social change - one man’s work to create a future universe that covers the next thousand years, all based on real scientific and technological speculation (albeit often tenuous speculation). A fascinating read.
Along with reams of timelines and explantory material, the author has written some very original story/timelines [...]