October 2008 - Posts - Play Things

October 2008 - Posts

Five politically incorrect moments in recent computer gaming history

Posted by Sidin Vadukut at 
Hope, dear readers, that Diwali was mighty nice to all of you and, like me, your brother-in-law bought you a brand new PlayStation Personal as well. This shiny new portable gaming device combined with the iPod, PS2 and Asus EEEPC means that my marriage is pretty much going to hell. Sigh. Anyways gaming aficionados amongst you will have noticed that...

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Too Little, Too Late?

Posted by Krish Raghav at 
Sure, news is coming in that three tech giants - in this case Messrs Google , Yahoo and Microsoft , are signing a global 'code of conduct' to combat invasions of privacy and free speech online, and an aura of do-goodiness is slowly but surely settling on these three - but hang on a second. Buried somewhere within most of the reports is a disclaimer...

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Why rely on Microsoft Office?

Posted by Krish Raghav at 
Seriously, why? There's no need to, really - not with *fanfare* OpenOffice around! OpenOffice (It's called OpenOffice.org, and will be henceforth abbreviated to OoO) is a free, open source alternative to the venerable MS line of productivity suites . It's credentials are quite impressive - one of the largest open source projects active ...

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The Fallout Fall Out

Posted by Krish Raghav at 
This is a bit strange. The folks over at GamingIndians are reporting that the Indian release of Fallout 3, the third installment of the seminal post-apocalytpic RPG series (The first two are among my all-time favourite games) is being cancelled due to 'cultural sensitivities.' A follow up, over at the Escapist , uncovers the reason, or atleast...

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Autos in Cyberspace

Posted by Krish Raghav at 
Autorickshaws are perfect videogame material - they exemplify the sort of dizzy, exhilarating, barely controllable speed thrills that most racing games attempt to simulate. Out of curiosity, I started scouring the online flash game world for signs of autorickshaws - surely there was a game that captured the endless charms of careening down a narrow...

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Obama's got game

Posted by Sidin Vadukut at 
Susan Davis out at the Wall Street Journal has a post on how everyone's favourite "Agent of Change" is now tapping into the online gaming posse to garner votes: A spokeswoman for Electronic Arts, the game’s publisher, confirmed to the gigaom.com that Obama’s campaign had paid for in-game advertising. “Like most television, radio and print...

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Fun and games in Karachi

Posted by Sidin Vadukut at 
Paul Kedrosky's blog, Infectious Greed , is the blog to read if you, like me, have very few investments to worry about. And are prepared to laugh while the global economy melts down around us. Kedrosky, aided by a potent mix of wit and wisdom, writes scathing and funny posts about banks, stocks, public policy and Hank Paulson. Seldom have I read...

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Supering the Awesome Bar

Posted by Krish Raghav at 
Firefox 3's Address bar, rather modestly called the 'AwesomeBar' has been the subject of numerous pontifications - some debating on the extent of its awesomeness, others revelling in the amount of awesome , and others criticizing it for falling short of its promised awesomeness to settle on merely good. Those debates can now end. Enter URLBarExT...

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Try the Google Phone for free!

Posted by Sidin Vadukut at 
Once again a misleading headline that works splendidly. Very nice. But no. I wasn't being entirely deceptive. In a feature that we think should be mandatory for every new phone release henceforth, the new Google Android phone has an online flash emulator that gies you some idea of how the phone works. It isn't 100% implmented but the flash animation...

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Infy director is now popular American dessert

Posted by Sidin Vadukut at 
In yet another Play Things exclusive we have with us an email that was sent out to several Infosys employees yesterday. The email is merely an HR release on interesting office functions that have taken place in the facility over the last few days. Prima facie there is nothing odd about it. Some would say that such bonhomie in companies is uncalled for...

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Baba Ramdev: The Google Chrome connection

Posted by Sidin Vadukut at 
Have you guys noticed how despite the "global credit meltdown" , the Iceland economy falling to pieces and such maladies, geeks continue to spend with gay abandon? In complete deviation from perhaps every other sector on the face of the planet, geekery has been particularly productive of late. New browsers , new mobile phones and smartphones...

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Once Upon Many Times

Posted by Krish Raghav at 
Daniel Benmergui 's flash games present an interesting little conundrum. Hosted over at Ludomancy (where he also maintains a fun little blog) - he calls his works 'experiments' in gameplay. There's none of the high score, goal-based progression you normally see with browser games. Instead, you get a gentle, meditative mood, multiple...

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The Art of the Demake

Posted by Krish Raghav at 
The good folks over at TIGSource recently held a month long game de-programming extravaganza - The 'Bootleg Demakes' competition . The rules? Simple - pick a game, any game. Then, 'demake' it into how it would have looked and played for hardware before its age. Think ' Gears of War ' on an old 999999 in 1 cartridge. Or Valve's...

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