Remember When You Wanted Your Own Ms. Pac-Man?
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When arcade games are in the recreation room, no coins are necessary.
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Tycho:  I should have all the science lined up by the end of the week, ready to stuff into the piano black lozenge I've obtained to celebrate my return to personal computing.  Wish me luck; I've never before had the opportunity to fry four processors at once.       I know things.  Specifically, things that may be of interest to you.  For example, I know if playing Eye of Judgment online is an onerous as it might seem.  It is not!  I cannot express my relief.    Well, let's try.  In my last, vast expose, I broke down a card's unique language and expressed some misgivings about online play - ultimately just accepting it, because what they're trying to do is so weird that there's no prior art.  Essentially, you "register" your thirty card deck with the system itself, where it is stored and named for future use.  This process is extremely straightforward:  it is simply a matter of you laying your cards anywhere on the mat, a few at a time.  It will probably take two minutes if you really keep on it.  Then, you jump online, choose what nation you want to play for, and track down a partner.  At this point, the game will "draw" you your five card hand by showing you the card art onscreen.  You get one Mulligan (or redraw), but if you like your hand you move into the game proper.  We laid out our deck by element, face up, and this smoothed the turn to turn process considerably.      In the build we have, and I hope this is changed for release, it shows you these cards in a single file line without their name or text - just the art.  Once you got familiar with these images, slightly modified from their card format, it's pretty quick - but the names should be displayed on this screen.  You can use the controller to pull up the names, but let's be serious - at no point should the player be forced to interact with a mundane controller once the game is underway.     You should know that the game really wants a well-lit environment.  You don't need a flare gun or anything, but we didn't have what we needed before and certain squares would slow down the game flow with partial reads that would only resolve after several attempts and minute card adjustments.  I should state that here in the office, we removed all the overhead lights, installing a single track of illumination that we point at the ceiling, where lights used to be.  We tend to transform any place we live into a cave.  So, our scenario might be somewhat atypical.    Also, I know if playing Rock Band with all the instruments off of a USB hub is onerous.  You will be happy to know that it is not - we played said instruments spread out on an actual stage, and found it more than satifactory.  The reality is that the drum kit already needs its own wire, so it isn't as though the future had actually arrived anyway.  Plus, the mic isn't wireless either. This makes the contrived brouhaha over wired guitars a fairly transparent traffic ploy.    This is a matter quite apart from Microsoft's reticence to play ball with unique, third party hardware.  And when I say "play ball," I'm taking about the shakedown operation they've got going licensing their wireless technology, which either makes products for their system more expensive or (in the salient case of Rock Band) results in them bundling a wired controller for the same price as a wireless one on a competitor's system.  This is the last holiday they can get away with this sort of thing...  right?
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Gabe: I sort of have a reputation for being the hot headed one here at the Arcade. I think that"s probably fair to say. I have a habit of saying very mean things to people I don"t agree with. As much as I might try not to be that guy it"s just sort of become my role.
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Pac Man will be reborn on Microsoft  Corp.&#39;s Xbox Live online service on Wednesday as a final  tribute for designer Toru Iwatani, who is retiring from the $30  billion games industry he helped ignite.
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Tycho:  We attended the same Nintendo Media Summit you have seen reported elsewhere, in the hopes of seeing Super Mario Galaxy or Metroid Prime 3: Corruption - titles which are not minigame compilations, portable puzzle games, or games for my mom.  I don't want to say that the complimentary breakfast and lunch were a factor.  Let me say that we were hungry when we made the decision to go.
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Visit GeppiÂs Entertainment Museum: where a Benjamin Franklin panel shares a shrine with Ms. Pac-Man.
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November 03, 2004 - Sonic Mega Collection Plus is perhaps one of the best compilations you could ask for. At a mere $20, gamers can enjoy 20 classic games.
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Gabe: Joystiq had some interesting articles up over the weekend about introducing your family to the Wii. I actually had a similar experience. We had a house full of friends and family for Thanksgiving and the Wii was really the star of the show. Kara and I both had parents over and we actually had a hard time getting them off of Wii sports. I can"t even count how many rounds of bowling I must have played. It was amazing to watch how easily they picked it up and how much fun they had. What was great was watching Kara"s Dad who loves to bowl but can"t anymore because of his knees. I wouldn"t be surprised if he goes home this week and tries to pick one up.
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Thoughts on a video game in which the assassination of JFK is a matter of fun. By MARTIN SCHRAM, Scripps Howard News Service. The morning of Nov. 22 began just as it did 41 years ago, with an alarm clock&#39;s
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By By Isolde Raftery, The Columbian, Vancouver, Wash.  Jun. 22--To children of the 1980s, mentions of Zelda, Dark Castle or Pac-Man stir up nostalgic memories of endless afternoons spent indoors, just feet from a computer or television screen.
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Gabe: I just have some random stuff to share here.Pokemon League night is next Tuesday at the Comic Stop. Matches start at six pm, but you can show up a little early if you'd like to trade cards. As always new players are welcome, just bring a starter deck. It's also a good idea to register at Go-Pokemon.com and bring your POP ID. A reader wrote in today to tell me that he was doing the New York Times crossword puzzle for January 30th and noticed this clue for 12 down:  "Tycho's pal in the webcomic 'Penny Arcade' (4 letters)." That's totally awesome. I'm sure the Force Unleashed will be fine. The time period around the original trilogy is just getting so crowded. Now Vader has a secret apprentice? I mean, it makes sense canonically to me. The Emperor had Mara Jade out there doing his dirty work. It's not unreasonable to think Vader had a similar arrangement. Also the very nature of Sith rule makes covering your ass a necessity. The hook for the game is fine and I don't mind the 3rd person action stuff. There are a few games I'd much rather see them make though. The fact that they have not made a sequel to Republic Commando is fucking criminal. That's not a joke either. I mean that someone over there should be put in jail for the rest of their life. RepCom was an incredible squad based shooter, and unlike most games in that genre it was packed with awesome characters. This games deserves a next gen sequel. The other game that needs a next gen installment is Tie Fighter. Seriously that game came out in 1994 and it's one of the best space shooters ever. And for fucks sake stop setting things during the movies. There's nearly sixty years worth of incredible content (minus the dark nest series) extending out past Return of the Jedi. You don't have to keep trying to cram stories into the same 20 year period. They're milking so much content out of that period that eventually we'll be playing a game as Luke where the goal is to repair vaporators on the south ridge. Hurry up you've only got 'till mid day!Rez is available on Xbox Live now. It's one of the best games ever made.   The most popular piece of clothing we've ever made, AKA The Black Mantle is back in stock. It's joined by its polar opposite, the Luminous Vestments. I have a feeling both will be sold out before I finish typing this.   -Gabe out
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TechWeb - Pac Man will be reborn on Microsoft&#39;s Xbox Live online service Wednesday as a final tribute for designer Toru Iwatani, who is retiring from the $30 billion games industry he helped ignite.
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The Atari 2600 Video Computer System (VCS), introduced in 1977, was the most popular home video game system of the early 1980's.  Stella is a multi-platform Atari 2600 VCS emulator.  It allows you to play all of your favorite Atari 2600 games again! This is the 1.4.1 release of Stella for Linux, Mac OSX and Windows.  Distributions for other operating systems will appear as they become available.   Stella was originally developed for Linux by Bradford W. Mott, however, it has been ported to a number of other platforms.   The distributions currently available are:    * Binary distribution in RPM format for Linux (stella-1.4.1-1.i586.rpm)    * Binary distribution for Mac OSX (StellaOSX1.4.1.dmg.gz)    * Binary distribution for Windows (stella-1.4.1-win32.zip)    * Source code distribution for Linux, Mac OSX and Windows (stella-1.4.1-src.tar.gz)    * Source code in SRPM format for Linux RPM-based systems (stella-1.4.1-1.src.rpm)  PLEASE DO NOT WRITE ASKING FOR ROM IMAGES TO USE WITH STELLA! ALL SUCH REQUESTS WILL BE IGNORED!  New in this Release ===================    * Fixed PAL sound issues.  PAL games now should sound correct (no distortion     or missing sounds), but some games may still run too fast.  This is still     a work-in-progress, and will be fixed in Stella 1.5.    * Cleaned up the SDL event gathering loop.  This should hopefully fix the     problems with "double-pumping events" reported by some Windows users.     Event gathering and dispatching is now much faster as well.    * Fixed a bug where the Control or Alt keys could be assigned to some event,     but they could never be used.  Control/Alt can now be used for any event.    * Updated stella.pro file to work with the latest Good2600 ROMset release     (Thanks go to Voch for helping to maintain the stella.pro file).    * For the Windows port; removed requirement for ROM files to be named *.bin     in the StellaX frontend.  The ROM's can now have any name, but ZIP-files are     not yet supported.    * For the Windows port; fixed the problems with the included modified SDL     library and Windows 98 users.  Stella should now run in Windows 98.    * For the OSX port; added preference to allow user to select the directory     in which ROM images are stored.  This sets the default directory to start     the browsing for a ROM in, and doesn't preclude the user from selecting a     file outside that directory.    * For the OSX port; fixed preferences bug where Preferences changed before     a game was opened were not being saved.
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"Come Out and Play Festival" to bring together out-of-the-box designers, techno-philosophers and utopian free spirits. Oh, and gamers too. Photos: Playing PacManhattan
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The first time I heard the phrase "digital rights management" was in 2000. It came from the mouth of Dick Brass, who at the time headed up Microsoft's (MSFT) automotive computing division.  I didn't like the phrase from the start.
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Tycho:  This has been simmering on some tertiary heat source for awhile, and it may be time to serve it.  When a classic game is re-released for digital delivery, by what criteria are they being reviewed?
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Tycho:  Mario Hoops 3-on-3 is impressive in many ways, as I've suggested: certainly as a technical showcase, it's nice to have in your bag.  As a catalogue of Japanese aggression toward gamers, it's clear now that future generations will refer to these advanced cups as a deeply scandalous exhibit.  I have seen a Goddamn ninja weave a dark circle, disappear with a burst of leaves in some strictly Hattori Hanzo type shit, and then phase back into the physical plane to haunt our mortal hoops.