Sudden steaminess on the horizon

 alternate reality games, apple, computer games  No Responses »
Mar 072010
 

Steam on OS X teaserAccording to RockPaperShotgun Valve Corporation’s Steam content delivery system is about to arrive on OS X. Or on the iPhone/Touch/iPad. Or it might be just a red herring in the ongoing alternate reality game that centers on Portal 2.

Considering the rather poor state of game offerings in local stores, even with a vastly shorter list of Steamed games with Mac versions available than on the windows box, this is a very welcome piece of news indeed.

And the arrival of Portal and/or Half-life 2 at the same time would not be raising too many eyebrows either.

Eagle Eye, 3 stars (and 4 fat Alfreds)

 alternate reality games, movie reviews  No Responses »
Mar 012009
 

Eagle Eye PosterWatched Eagle Eye off a dvd on Saturday evening. While the neither the plot nor the characters of the movie are anything special, the film does definitely provide two hours of good time for the friends of conspiracy thrillers.

Indeed, Eagle Eye, like its name states, is pretty much brimming with surveillance porn – computerized images flicker on and off the screen, packed with details about the subjects.

To describe the plot in ay detail would invite cries of spoilers, so let’s just say that this is a movie that takes modern fears, mixes in a few futuristic ingredients and in the final hour ends up paying homage to a few movies along the way (ranging from Renny Harlin’s take on Die Hard to one of the true Hitchcock classics via Stanley Kubrick). The plot is a rollercoaster ride that ends up actually providing a twisted logical frame of its own, but that requires willing participation – this is not a movie to watch in a nitpicking mood.

Shia LaBeouf is once again dependable as the male protagonist, and Michelle Monaghan puts in another credible performance as well (though not as good as in 2007′s Gone, Baby, Gone). The supporting cast ranges from barely recognizable (Rosario Dawson just has too much clothing on) to the opposite (Shield’s Michael Chiklis commands the few scenes he’s in on).

Eagle Eye’s launch was accompanied by an alternate reality game called Freefall, which sadly seems not to be available to audiences outside United States.

ARG in Hesari

 alternate reality games  No Responses »
Dec 212008
 

Oddest moment of the morning – seeing half a page of Hesari devoted to alternate reality games.

The duo of articles covered both the brief history of the genre as well as its first domestic use. Cathy’s Book has just been translated into finnish, but the related supplementary materials remain english-only. It would have indeed been quite a stretch to re-do the entire concept.

Calling it quits (or taking time off), a double feature

 alternate reality games, blogging, games  No Responses »
Jun 092007
 

Two notable entities decided that time is now ripe to abandon ship.

Nyt Pelittää, the game-blog of hesari quotes lack of audience as the main reason to quit. True, the nine-strong writer corps never found their voices – but amongs the long gaps inbetween entries and occasionally missing points there were some worthwhile articles. The same cannot, obviously, be said of a large segment of the whole blogistan. Time out, hopefully, and not a full-scale rout from covering games.

Perplex City, probably the largest alternate reality game right now has indefinitely postponed the launch of the second season of the game. Of course the situation is not as clear-cut as the announcements would lead to believe – the second season cards have been for sale for quite a while, so the reception among players has not been uniformly positive to say the least.

The former had a long slide into obscurity – with increasingly stretching intervals between articles, so the decision to pull the plug was pretty much expected. The latter was a surprise, especially considering how much revenue the first season generated (though the company’s decision to abandon bookkeeping after the gig was over was a bit odd). Bought a couple of packs of cards and quite liked the varied selection of puzzles. With just a few dozen solved cards had no clue about the big picture, obviously.

Ludo-linkage

 alternate reality games, games, interactive fiction, links, role-playing games  No Responses »
May 022007
 

Recently sighted game-related links:

  • The third part of the history of computer role-playing games is out. This one concentrates on the decade starting from 1994 – and covers many of the classics of the genre such as Planescape:Torment and the Baldur’s Gate saga.
  • Unsurprisingly, a videogame on Lost has been announced. No statement on which seasons this will cover – if it’s up to the third, the spoiler-averse in the audience (including me, obviously) will avoid this until the third season is available on dvd – expectedly in september.
  • Bethesda Softworks has bought the Fallout IP. If the resulting game combines the storylines of the previous Fallout installments with the graphics of Oblivion, its arrival will be a happy day indeed.
  • Keyboard pad for xbox 360 – how long before the first Z-machine (and Zork, naturally) makes it into the Live Arcade…
  • World Without Oil, an alternate reality game launched on mayday eve. Haven’t played with it at all yet – seems US-centered on a first blink.
  • Publishing a game based on George R.R. Martin‘s still-to-be-completed septalogy a Song of Fire and Ice suddenly bankrupted Guardians of Order. The sad history of the franchise doesn’t deter Green Ronin from trying out the very same move.

Just the links, m'm

 alternate reality games, books, design, food, interactive fiction, links, maps, music, restaurants, television, web  No Responses »
Jan 162007
 

The license and registration, please.