A Visit to the Museum of Underappreciated Games
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PROVIDENCE, R.I.  - You've heard of "Myst,"  "Quake" and "Tomb Raider," but how many people remember  "Obsidian," "Grim Fandango" and "Under A Killing Moon?"
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The stunning sale of a tiny antiquity has increased interest in the once-overlooked market for ancient coins, sculpture and pottery
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Yixing ware is the focus of a small but fascinating exhibition at the China Institute gallery.
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A show at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art presents some odd (but fascinating) examples of serial photography.
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Readers go on (and on!) about the University of Southern California's quality game-development programs. Plus: Links to our most popular blog posts.
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Tycho:  Having already purchased two fifths of The Orange Box over the last few years, the level of value I have derived from it is "fantastic" but not "supernatural."  For Gabriel, who never finished the second Half-Life and never purchased the first episode, the aforementioned Box represents an intimidating and possibly even brutal level of content for one's holiday dollar.  It's hard enough trying to keep up with all the games that are coming out, but when you start putting more than one game on the disc the difficulty is compounded.   We're lucky, then, than the best thing on there can be completed in only a couple hours.     I've tried to make my rounds through the disc, but I kept coming back to Portal until I'd completed it.  I expect every part of this strange collection to be full of virtue, in the way that Valve's anomalous position in the games industry allows: self-funded development in their sky-high Bellevue commune until each product sings.  But Portal is strange, even for them.  Risky on every axis, we may now say that the "first person puzzle comedy" has now been proven out as a genre.  The gameplay is strong, but Portal's unique combination of hilarity and menace elevates it, resulting in a few perfect, indelible hours of gameplay.          My TeamFortress 2 experience so far on the console has been fairly uneven.  Coming from the PC beta, where I sometimes battled with stability concerns but the games played smooth, I'm now grappling with the reverse.  I love the play experience, as I've already expressed, and I'm rarely of the opinion that having more players automatically improves a game - so the differential between the PC and 360 platforms isn't as important to me as it might be to others.  No, the problem with TF2 on the 360 (and likely the PS3, as well) is that peer to peer hosting just ain't cutting it.  There are games that seem to manage it better, but with Vista PCs authenticating into the service now peer to peer games should be an option.  This needs fixed overnight.     I'll try to complete the second Episode over the weekend, interleaved with finishing the writing on my own game, which has become more difficult since completing Portal.  I'm starting to think that Precipice needs a greater concentration of synthesized ladies.      I would be abdicating my duty if I neglected to mention the EA thing, which is really the EA/BioWare/Pandemic thing.  I was under the impression that BioWare and Pandemic had merged precisely to give themselves leverage over monolithic publishers like Electronic Arts, but who knows.  The biggest fallout in the short term is that, beyond the first Mass Effect, a multiplatform release is almost certain.  Of course, I wholly endorse that kind of thing, but I imagine that Microsoft might hold a different opinion.  After spending years promoting the series, enduring delays, and now having spent months beating the shit out of it in test, it's fair to say that MS was investing in a larger trilogy - one that gamers would associate exclusively with their brand.
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At the Contemporary Museum in Baltimore, there's no need to turn off your cell phone at the door.  This interactive art show dials you into the beauty of the handheld. Plus: Images from the exhibit.  By Asami Novak.
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The game console is expected to appeal to a wider variety of consumers.
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The top spots offering a peek into the past.
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Gametap puts hundreds of titles at your fingertips and connects you to gamers worldwide. By Chris Kohler from Wired magazine.
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Its touch panel makes the Nintendo DS a unique and fun gadget, although the system and the current crop of games don't use it to its fullest. By Chris Kohler.
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A show at Mitchell-Innes & Nash invites us to reconsider the virtues of this underrated painter.
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Get in the game with a visit to these intimate ballparks.
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Take a peek at a weird passel of new adventure games for Wii, PlayStation 2, Xbox 360 and PSP.
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Gabe: The Penny Arcade Battle Academy Will be meeting next Tuesday the 8th at the Comic Stop. We're an official Pokemon TCG league now. Those of you in the Academy who haven't done so already, should register with Go Pokemon.com. Once you have a POP ID you can post it in this thread and Joe will get you added to the roster. As always, new players are welcome. Just grab a starter deck and be at the Comic Stop around 6.PM. There will be plenty of people willing to walk you through the game if it's your first time. For our regulars, if you're looking for a place up north to get cards and boosters I highly recommend the Cardhaus in Lynnwood. He's got some singles in stock but he also has the best price on boosters I've been able to find. Also, Kiko and I picked up some great tips and a few interesting rules that we did not know about while at the tournament. We'll share our "key learnings" with you all on Tuesday. It should be a fun night, hope to see some new faces. -Gabe out
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Two shows at Shakespeare & Company in Lenox, Mass., offer a playground for games with genres.
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Videogame fans get a taste of the latest games, including Rock Band and BioShock, and immerse themselves in gamer-geek culture at the Seattle show.