Rock Band 2? Rock on!

Rock Band fans rejoice! Rock Band 2 has officially been announced for a fall release.

Fully functional cross-title downloadable content and backward compatible with the original Rock Band, Rock Band 2 promises to…well…rock. This announcement, combined with the recently announced Guitar Hero World Tour, makes me think that rhythm games are here to stay --- and I believe I’m right when I say the monetization model for music is moving to games in a hurry.

Oh, I also just picked up Guitar Hero Aerosmith edition for $99 Canadian. It comes complete with a wireless guitar and a free Aerosmith CD for listening in the car (bundled separately). I’m amazed that these guys can sell millions of these things for $100 a pop.

Think about this --- these old rockers could barely sell CDs for $10, and digital music for .79 cents. Now, thanks to Activision these guys are getting rich all over again!

Now there’s even more justification to never having learned to play a real instrument.

Get practicing, Evy.

Evy and the Envy: Part Two

Evy had just ordered an Envy and hit me up on Facebook to tell me all about it. After hearing a bit about her life I asked if I could interview her for the Next Bench blog.

..and uhh, she kills anyone at Guitar Hero AND she plays poker. This girl is crazy! Here is part two of the interview.

rs: What is your favorite game?
Evy: The best game ever has to be poker. There's so many different facets to it: you need to have card sense, math skills, game strategy, acting ability, and a psychological understanding of your opponents to be really good at it. It's the ultimate mind-game.

rs: Speaking of mind games, I saw you playing poker with Criss Angel. Did he psych you out or what?
Evy: Magicians kinda creep me out to begin with, so I was a little off my game. I would take a re-match though.

rs: What is your favorite videogame?
Evy: These days I play Rock Band the most, but if I had to pick my favorite game of all-time, it would be Tetris. I like simplicity in videogames. I don't like having to memorize what 10 different buttons and 3 joysticks are supposed to do. I've tried playing Halo, but I would always end up staring at the sky or at my feet. Shooters and RPG's just confuse the **bleep** out of me so much that I get anxiety trying to play them. I wish there were more games that you could play on a controller with 2 buttons and a D-pad. What's amazing about Tetris though is that so little has changed to the game play in more than 20 years, but it's still just as fun and challenging to me now then when I was a kid playing it in the arcade. Tetris doesn't need any fancy graphics to keep people interested; I could play it in black and white or even on a cell phone for hours on end. I've been playing Tetris for about half of my lifetime, yet I'm constantly learning new strategies and techniques and I'm still getting better at it too.

rs: What is your favorite console?
Evy: I have two Xbox 360 Elites. I bought the second one recently because I wanted the Falcon motherboard with the improved 65nm chipset and heatsink. I play on my Xbox so much that I lived in constant fear of getting the Red Ring of Death. I wanted a back-up in case I ever have to send mine in for repair. I keep the old one in my room and I take it on the road with me when I travel. I love the Xbox 360 mostly because of Xbox Live. Online multi-player on XBL is far superior its equivalents on Wii and PS3.

rs: Why the crazy obsession for rhythm games?
Evy: I really love music, and I've always wanted to be some kind of musician or singer, but I was too impatient and lacked the dedication to stick with lessons and practice scales and stuff. Guitar Hero and Rock Band gives you the feeling that you are really playing the music, and since it's a game, it makes practicing wayyyy more fun than it would be on real instruments. I'm also super awesome at rhythm games, so maybe that makes me love them even more.

rs: So, which is it: Guitar Hero or Rock Band?
Evy: I love both games, but they each have their pros and cons to them. For instance, GH is a bit easier because the timing window is more generous than on RB, but the songs on GH are also harder. RB has way more downloadable songs, but I think the notes are charted in a more fun and challenging way on GH. For multiplayer, Rock Band is definitely better, especially if you have friends over to play, but if I was to compare them by Guitar Solo Career alone, I think that GH3 is more fun. The reason I play RB so much more often is because you have a lot more options. The guitar, bass, vocal and drums can all be played as a separate career, as well as in a 2, 3 or 4-part band. Combined with the new download content that is released every week, RB has significantly higher replay value making it a much better game than GH in my opinion. That being said, there are a million annoyances that come with RB. It seems so unnecessary to have to sign in and out of each instrument, and if you're in a band you can't just swap out your guitar for a mic for your character, you have to add a whole new character. All these extra steps really takes away from enjoying the game and just rocking-out, which makes me wonder what the developers were thinking when they designed the multiplayer.

rs: How good are you at Guitar Hero exactly?
Evy: I have yet to finish GH3 on expert, and there are some songs which I doubt I will ever be able to pass, but I would still guess that I am better than 99% of the GH-playing population. I kinda suck at crazy metal and arpeggio-laden tracks, but I'm really good at songs that have strong or intricate rhythmic elements. I'm also a total score-monger, and I try to learn the paths for optimal star-power usage. I'm getting better at metal, but I still need to work on alt-strumming, arpeggios and trills. I've FC'ed (100% full-combo'ed) a dozen songs on GH3, and 25 songs on RB so far.

rs: Seriously? How do we know you’re telling the truth?
Evy: I have some game videos that I screen-captured up on my YouTube page, and I have an upcoming heads-up GH3 competition that PokerNews.com is going to shoot. A friend of mine wants to make a video of me playing Heart Shaped Box on expert without looking at the screen. I can get 97% usually, but I want to practice and see if I can FC it first.

rs: Solved the mystery of the CRTL key yet? What's your theory?
Evy: I've spent way too much time trying to figure out what it means. I've tried coming up with a million acronyms that don't make any sense, and none of them are better or cuter than the one that "ubiks" came up with, 'Cuts Right Through Layercake'. It's definitely not a typo, and I will be admittedly disappointed if it isn't something cool... but so far my experience with the CRTL key is 'Causes Redundant Thinking Lamely'. I can't wait to get my Envy to find out what it really means!

You can find Evelyn Ng playing online poker at Bodoglife.com and poker tournaments around the world.

Evy and the Envy: Part 1

One of the coolest things about what I do is getting to connect with so many fascinating people. This includes, of course, chatting with members of the Next Bench community, but it also means meeting people in a variety of other ways.

Take for example Facebook. Many good looking women from all over the world send me Facebook requests – you know? Alright… Just kidding, I’m sure my wife would have something to say about that.

However, there was one girl who sent me a Facebook recently, her name is Evy, a self-described Voodoo fan.

Evy had just ordered an Envy, and after reading a bit about her remarkable life, I asked if I could interview her for the Next Bench blog. I swore I saw her somewhere before, and I just couldn’t put my finger on it… Until I checked her profile. ..and then I found out she can play Heart Shaped Box in Guitar Hero 2 on EXPERT without looking at the screen AND score 97%.

Here is the first part of the interview where she explains her Envy love and about technology in general.

rs: What's a girl like you doing in Vegas?

Evy: I came to Las Vegas for my 21st birthday, and I pretty much never left. I do travel a lot, but I've lived here for over a decade. I don't really love this town, because I'm spoiled coming from a great city like Toronto. I lived in Santa Monica for a year, but it just wasn't the right fit. Vegas at least suits my lifestyle. Everything is open late or 24/7, the restaurants are fabulous and you can drop a mint easily here with all the great shopping. I love my apartment and my friends here, and as a professional poker player, it just makes sense to live in Lost Wages.

rs: So you're a poker pro? How did that happen?

Evy: I had a misspent youth. I always had an aptitude for all kinds of skill games, and I liked making money, so as a teenager I hung out at the local pool hall hustling private school kids at pool, cards, board games, and even videogames. When I was 17 I took a job as a dealer in an underground poker club. I didn't know anything about poker at the time, so I really paid attention. I would see the same people winning almost every day, so I tried to learn their strategy by remembering what they did in different situations. I'd also try to guess what cards they held or predict what they were going to do next during a hand. I read some poker books, and after about a year of dealing I built up a bankroll to start playing. I was a winner right out of the gate.

rs: When did you first fall in love with all things technology?

Evy: My dad is a bit of a technophile- he has a taste for high quality a/v equipment and gadgets. I think we were the only family in our neighborhood with a LaserDisc machine. He's a watchmaker and he can fix anything. When I would hang out with him in his workshop I would be fascinated with all the tiny little parts and tools he would use. I would take all kinds of things that I thought were interesting, and disassemble them piece by piece, but I wasn't as good as my dad was at putting them back together. After getting yelled at by my mom so many times for destroying various household appliances, I eventually learned not to take things apart, but my fascination and reverence for machines and technology remained.

rs: What phone do you carry?

Evy: I have been a SideKick user since they first came out several years ago. I've had almost every version of it, but I prefer the SK Slide made by Motorola because it's a lot smaller than the Danger models. I have been told by some tech-snobs (Blackberry users mostly) that the SK is "ghetto"... but for internet browsing, text and emailing, it's by far the best phone out that I've ever tried. It's very ergonomic, the keys are not all bunched together and the browser is the only one i know of that automatically formats web pages so that the text and pictures are the right size for viewing. My best friend got me an iPhone the day it came out, and at the time I thought it was "the coolest thing on the planet", but I was wrong. After a few weeks, I got really of tired of pinching and tapping on the screen to zoom in and out, and I absolutely hated the touch-screen keyboard. I have long fingernails, so i had to use the side edge of my fingertips to type, and without any tactile response I would hit the wrong keys all the time unknowingly. The iPhone looks very impressive, but the features that make it look so cool aren't very practical in application. However, like you Rahul, I can't stand voicemail (why not just text?), but the iPhone so-called "Visual Voicemail" was pretty cool that you could go through messages individually... but it's still really Auditory Voicemail.

rs: What portable music device do you have?

Evy: I have a zillion iPods, but I use the iPod Touch the most. It's pretty, the screen is awesome for watching videos and displaying album art, and it has all the cool functions of the iPhone without all the annoyances of having to use it as my phone/texting device.

rs: What are you listening to?

Evy: My musical tastes are extremely varied. I love deep house, classic rock, acid jazz, disco, funk, R&B, old-school hip-hop, some fairly cheesy 80's music, and a lot of other stuff too. The artists that probably get the most plays on my iPod are: Stevie Wonder, Audioslave, Daft Punk, Amy Winehouse, The Strokes, Heart and Jamiroquai. I don't like 99% of the music that has come out in the last 5 years or so, and I don't like any music that has anyone screaming really loudly in it. Oh, and I hate country.

rs: So why are you getting an Envy?

Evy: The Envy is the first computer that I ever got really excited about buying, and I'm actually counting down the days until it's released. The instant-on, touchpad, and the power brick built-in WiFi access point are features completely unique to the Envy, and I'm sure that their competitors will copy them in the future. From a design standpoint, the Envy is simply unparalleled. I've never used the word "sexy" to describe a computer before, but if I had to choose one word to describe the esthetics of the Envy, it's the only word that comes to mind. Aside from the beauty of the machine inside and out, the Voodoo logo is not like your typical name-brand logo plastered onto a product. The meaning behind it (the duality of performance and style, art and technology) is not only something that I really appreciate and admire, but the logo itself looks so cool that it actually adds itself as a design element, actually improving the overall look of the computer. The Voodoo Envy 133 is the coolest thing on the planet.

Watch for Part Two tomorrow when Evy talks about poker proficiency and her crazy-mad Guitar Hero skills.

Complaints, Planes and Automobiles

It’s good to be home. To say that I’ve been on the road a lot lately would be a huge understatement.

With a job like mine I get to travel to some pretty cool places, so please don’t think that I’m officially complaining, but when it comes right down to it there’s no place like home.

That’s not to say I never get the travel bug when I’m home. As you may know, I’m the kind of guy who likes to have my cake and eat it too.

The good news is when I do get the urge to hit a racetrack or fly in a 747, I do it, thanks to some kick ass simulators I’ve set up in my house.

I installed the flight simulator as a bit of a test of my own mettle. Flying isn’t exactly one of my favourite things to do. I wouldn’t call it fear as much as I’d call it hate.

No, I’d call it fear. Seriously, I hate flying.

So, to get over my own worry that some pilot will choose the bit-too-warm fish sandwich and keel over during a trans-Atlantic flight, I’ve installed an uber-realistic flight simulator in my home. I can fly anything from a Lear Jet, a Helicopter, or even a Jumbo Passenger Jet. So I guess you could say that I’m fairly confident with some coaching from a co-pilot or ground control I could safely land a 747.

Driving is an entirely different story. I could insert any number of car analogy here, Greg, but let’s just say that for me it’s pure pleasure and pure adrenaline. So, to complement my flight sim, I’ve got a loaded racing simulator, which includes a full racing seat, pedals and steering wheel.

My race sim of choice is R-Factor, which I used to practice for the Ferrari Challenge at one of the best race tracks in the world, located in Mt. Tremblant, near Montreal. The Ferrari Challenge was a truly amazing two day experience where we had the opportunity to tear up brand new Ferraris – some with as little as 30 miles on the odometer – including four F430 Scuderias!

By practicing at home first I figure that my lap times and learning curve came down significantly. It’s amazing how real R-Factor is – and the tracks are very close to reality.

If you’re a racing enthusiast and can get your hands on a racing simulator I definitely recommend it (we do sell the complete kits by the way, I think around $15,000 will get you up and running with an amazing setup). …And uhhh, if you’re scared of flying – I do recommend a flight simulator, it really helps with all the weird noises, bumps, and all the other nerve-racking stuff that happens in the air – at least you know what’s going on.

Bravo to ATI!

Since the launch of Blackbird, we have received numerous awards from many publications on our system. We shipped a mix of review systems, launching with ATI Crossfire, and some with Nvidia SLI graphics.

Some of the ATI reviews went to publications that were very critical of our video card choice. Needless to say these publications were focused on frame rates on very specific scripted benchmarks and narrowed their scope to the graphic subsystem rather than the overall system experience.

Our goal with using ATI on some of these review machines was to show the overall flexibility of the Blackbird platform, and while our competitors choose to limit choices we wanted to keep our customers' options open. So we created machines like the Alpha Configuration and went to market with it.

In the meantime we were seeing a push for 3 and 4 GPUs in the high end PC, and we were still concentrating on making the Vista gaming experience better. Re-read the article on time to market vs stability and you’ll see some of the things I’m speaking about.

Well, I mentioned in that article that Windows Vista Service Pack 1 was released, and shortly after ATI released a hot-fix for their Catalyst driver. Since then I’ve been playing a number of games, and I honestly cannot believe what I’m seeing.

Yes, I can't believe my eyes... It's like I'm dreaming, but I'm just not 100% sure a pinch will change anything. For the last few weeks I have not had ONE driver drop in Vista with ATI Crossfire….all of the games I had the error with are running much better.

This should be a lesson to everyone: ATI is doing great things on the graphics side right now. Frame rates are NOT the most important thing --- the most important factor in gaming is stability and visual quality. If you can buy an PC with optimized graphics for the display resolution that you are running (in my case 2560x1600) then you’ll be a much happier person, believe me.

So cheers to ATI, you graphic ninjas, for getting it right. The fact that I didn't have to replace my hardware to overcome the issue speaks volumes. I still need to go back and re-evaluate Nvidia - but we would love to hear from anyone out there with Vista and driver drop issues - please seed this message to all the forums that you think could provide input. We need as much information as possible to proceed.

Games for your Mom...

I wrote this article for the latest issue of CPU Magazine just after we returned from GDC. Check out the latest issue over here!

Last month in this space, I wrote about my own confusion surrounding Games for Windows. We had a meeting with Microsoft at GDC, and while they still face challenges, it does seem that they are dedicated to making good on their initiative based on what they said at the meeting. Whatever it is that Microsoft is trying to do, we’re all in agreement that the PC Gaming experience needs to be improved.

Speaking of improving PC Gaming, a group of us had an interesting meeting with the WildTangent team during GDC. As many CPU readers know, Alex St. John, the widely known “father” of DirectX, is the CEO of WildTangent and also a regular CPU columnist. I have always liked Steam’s approach to digital downloads, and their DRM system is pretty well managed. I always have thought that Gabe Newell is a genius, and when I heard that Alex St. John felt he had a good alternative to Steam, my interest piqued.

I always thought WildTangent was about making games easier for my mom to play, and as much as I like looking at Bejeweled, I can’t see myself playing it until my 50th birthday.

Well, surprise, surprise, Alex’s team has been working on a really cool core gamer module that will allow you to play AAA gaming titles (think Company of Heroes or Call of Duty 4) free with ads or on a pay-as-you-go basis. You can even choose to buy the game outright if you’d like and have it downloaded directly to your PC so you can start playing immediately.

The way it works is simple: You log in to your game software and, using a standard gamepad or mouse, you choose a game from a list of titles. If the game is already installed, you may choose to play it. Otherwise, you can cue it up for a download to play later.

Sounds a lot like Steam, right? Not quite. The cool thing about this software is you don’t have to buy the game in order to play it. You can choose to either watch an ad from a sponsor (if there is currently a sponsor) or pop a few virtual WildCoins in to play. WildCoins are the currency WildTangent developed to facilitate its pay-for-play system on casual games, and now they’re alluring to hardcore gamers, as well.

Another way to look at this is you no longer have to worry about spending $50 on a game that sucks; you can play it for $1.50 until you close the application. Or if you prefer not to spend any money you can choose to watch an ad for a particular sponsoring product prior to playing and then play. For those of you who prefer to buy the game outright, WildTangent also gives you the option just to buy it and download it to your hard drive.

So it’s cool to see dedication like this in the PC space, and it gives me big hope for the future—a future where PC gaming should be as easy as consoles, yet deliver the richness you can only get on a PC. That said, the more we try to port console content to the PC, the greater chance we have of killing the creativeness of developers.

Now, who was it who said that PC gaming is dying again? Make no mistake: PC gaming is growing. It grew last year and the only thing that’s changing is the distribution model. WildTangent is definitely doing some wild things, and as long as the gaming experience on the PC gets easier, I’m all for it.

This brings me to the PCGA (PC Gaming Alliance) announcement at GDC. I was representing HP for our PCGA “go or no-go” decision, and since the announcement, people have been asking why we chose not to become a founding member.

While we believe it’s important to make PC gaming easier, we don’t believe that PC gaming is in trouble, and perhaps once we work out our own plans in the performance PC space, we’ll revisit this initiative. For the moment, I’m still enthusiastic about the future.

Sins of a Stolen Empire

From Greg:

You probably haven't heard of Brad Wardell or his company Stardock. And it's my fault. At least partially.

Brad's company developed and publishes the popular Galactic Civilizations series, just published the best-selling Sins of a Solar Empire, and also develops and publishes a robust suite of popular Windows desktop enhancement software.

Brad’s products are always PC-based, always critically acclaimed, and always profitable.

But when I ran PC Gamer magazine, I rarely gave Brad’s games as much coverage as I did other “higher-profile” AAA games – games that didn’t always score as high as Brad’s games, games that didn’t always sell as well as Brad’s games, games that I didn’t always like as much as Brad’s games.

The reason is simple but a little counterintuitive: An Editor’s job is to sell magazines, but unfortunately, games that sell magazines don’t always sell. Sometimes gamers can’t afford a new game, especially when faced with myriad options during the Holiday season. Sometimes a game doesn’t turn out the way they’d hoped. Sometimes it’s easier to pirate.

That last one is a doozy. As Michael Fitch from THQ recently said publicly in reaction to PC game developer Iron Lore’s closure, PC game piracy is so pervasive that if we could simply turn a small percentage of pirates, say 10%, into paying customers, ­some game companies could double their profits: www.quartertothree.com

Michael makes some excellent points, but Brad Wardell sees things a little differently: Piracy PC Gaming

Read what both men have to say on the subject of software piracy and the current state of PC game development and let me know what you think.

Greg Vederman

How to advertise in-game...the RIGHT way

EA learned the hard way that using the burger king "king" in Fight Night was a stupid mistake

By Kristin

In-game advertising is not something that's terribly new, nor is it something that's terribly well done.

The first instance that I can remember of in-game advertising that I saw with my own eyes was in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. These ads were all for fictional companies and spoofs on current advertising at the time. Along with the radio commercials. Who didn't love to drive around in the car and listen to the various stations? Heck, I even had an entire GTA:VC loop on in my winamp at one point in time!

The next well executed in-game advertising was in Crackdown. Again, all fictional companies, it was fun to jump around the city and see the billboards, trying to figure out what real life life company they were spoofing.

Then came Guitar Hero 3 with the blatant, over the top, real life company ads. Who REALLY wants to see that huge McDonald's logo? When I started playing and noticing the advertising in the game and how utterly OBNOXIOUS it was, it made me want to boycott those companies that paid to have their ads inserted into the game. Your advertising is on the radio (why I listen to CDs), the television (why I play games and watch movies, I catch my tv shows online), and on billboards (why I watch the cars tail lights in front of me), don't invade my private zone of "my gametime". This is where I go to escape mainstream and life.

However, I do think mainstream advertising can be done well in games. This generation hates anything that smells of marketing unless it's VERY well done, edgy, comical, and memorable.

Cat herding anyone? Yes, you remember that super bowl commercial. It was funny, it's different, it was completely unexpected. Those weird little troll-like-things that quizno did a couple years ago that sang about the moon? Yeah you remember what I'm talking about.

In game marketing can be done successfully, the best way to do it would be to make up a fictions company that is a spoof of your real life company. It makes the gamer see the ad, go oh! That's XYZ company in real life they're spoofing, and they appreciate the company poking fun at itself (although the gamer may not realize the company paid for a spoofed ad - they may think it's the game designer spoofing a company).

You get brand recognition (McDonalds could have flipped their arches to spoof themselves, and shrunk the ad, Gamers LOVE to find easter eggs in games), you get the consumer thinking about your brand, and as they go by your establishment/product on the road/in the store it'll trigger a memory of the game -> trigger memory of your brand -> if executed correctly brand loyalty and a purchase.

I saw some concept art at one point for a blackbird campaign that had in game advertising. It was AWFUL. I'm so thankful everyone that saw the concepts reacted with the same visceral distaste and disgust that I did. Guess why it sucked so bad - it wasn't designed by gamers. Notice the Voodoo laptops in Call of Duty 4? Very understated, very subtle, very sexy. Why use 1 million words when 1 will do?

It can be done people. Just don't let suits design the ads. When your designing for your demographic, ASK your demographic or even better yet; have YOUR demographic design it.



Kristin Reilly

Trash Talking As An Art Form?

From Kristin:

Every one's heard it. Trash talking. Be it friends ribbing each other, someone screaming racial obscenities over Ventrilo/XBoxLIVE/TeamSpeak, or a colorful expression of exasperation at some one's skill, trash talking wont be going away any time soon. That being said, there are some rules that go along with trash talking. I know what you're thinking - rules? How can there be rules for trash talking? Its just a bunch of kids screaming four letter words at each other.

Not exactly.

Trash talking has evolved into something that your either adept at or not. There will always be someone who is better at it than you, just like playing a game or a sport, but to put yourself into the elite category you need to be able to do more than spout off the same 3 four-letter words in a row. It requires having a robust vocabulary (you need to know what's being said to you!) as well as imagination and a VERY quick wit. The most satisfying feeling is being able to best someone in a trash talking exchange by not resorting to cussing.

There are 3 main types of trash talkers and kinds of trash talking.

There's the omni-present simpleton trash talking. This user has exactly 3 words in his vocabulary, 4 if a girl is in the room and loves to display their middle school education. They tend to find that they're talking to themselves because everyone mutes them the first chance they get. Tends to use four letter words and whatever a lot. They'll still talk trash even if they're in last place on the leader board. They can't take a joke and will close down the server if anything negative is said at them. Usually found wandering servers solo and get banned consistently.

Then there's the I-made-it-through-school-and-know-when-to-keep-my-trap-shut (but not how to pull the mic out of my mouth so everyone has to hear my mouth breathing). These are the people you'll hear start telling everyone in the server how awesome they are and how amazing they are and OHMYGOSHDIDYOUSEETHATSHOT?! DIDYOUSEEIT?! I'M UNTOUCHABLE!

They don't care if they're in last place or first place. Every shot is "amazing". If a simpleton comes into their server there tends to be a lot of your mom jokes, whatevers, cursing, questions about genitalia size, and yelling. If jokes are made about this person, they'll laugh but secretly fume and engage in team killing to make them feel better about themselves. Tend to roam in packs with a few simpletons thrown in for good measure. Likes to be the pack leader.

Lastly we have the 1337 trash talkers. These are the people that can talk circles around a person and will use eloquence and intelligence to own someone. These are the people you'll hear in servers who can keep a person running after their own shadow and they wont realize it. They are the dangerous people to get into a verbal sparring match with. They'll rarely use curse words, will take a genitalia question and run with it (talking about how they have an INVERSE of organs), wont always mute simpletons and mouth breathers but instead chose to ignore them until they say something completely asinine and rip them apart. They know how to take a joke and will crack jokes about themselves. Most dangerous in packs, should not be crossed. Can be found either in packs or solo. They have no preference as they make friends wherever they go.

Now what the average Joe doesn't realize is there is a time and a place for trash talking. Trash talking is usually reserved for online matches. Due to the anonymity the Internet affords people, they tend to be much more critical and harsh and use language that they never would use in real life to another person. When you are at an event and seeing people face to face, you don't talk the same way you would if you were playing them online. I've already talked about the biggest burn I have ever received, I usually reserve my trash talking for online matches. At LAN's I tend to be involved in friendly banter with people back and forth, but no insults being thrown. Like everyone though, I am human and do slip up. The biggest burn I've ever thrown someones way was, sadly, to a group of kids about 14.

I was at the Penny Arcade Expo 2006 competing in the Halo2 tournament with 3 friends. We had an even split in our guy/girl ratio on our team, one of the few mixed teams there.

Seed 1 was a team we rolled with no problem.

Seed 2 was the team from Bungie studios. They put up a good fight being the spamming grenade whores they are but we prevailed. And unwittingly lost out on the pink master chief figurines (dang it!).

Seed 3 was a team of 14 year old boys in matching white t-shirts with their gamertags on the back. Now the appearance that these kids gave off is that they had never been to a LAN before, had only played online on Xbox Live, and thus acted accordingly. They were saying very inappropriate things and ended up irritating most of the people in the room through the course of the tournament.

When it came time to play against a team that had two girls on it, the bantering began and quickly escalated into full on trash talking. At one point one of the kids on the other team finally resorted to calling my girlfriend and I that-other-name-for-female-dogs when I snapped.

I stood up from my chair, turned my back on the game, and told the kids to sit down, shut up, and come back when their reproductive organs had dropped. Now I'm not proud of this, but it did put an end to the slurs they were slinging (along with our rolling of their team). Everyone has their breaking point and that was mine. Sadly we lost seed 4 and took home a fourth place finish.

The moral of this story though is - no matter where your playing be it online or in person with someone. You should always treat the person with respect. No matter who they are or what level their skill at the game is acting like I acted is never okay and shouldn't be condoned.

Kristin Reilly

In search of immersive gaming

From Kristin:

Checking this out during this year’s GDC really made me think about how far display technology has come in delivering that truly immersive entertainment experience – where gaming is more intense than reality.

Playing the proverbial Devil’s Advocate here, will we ever truly get to the stage where our PC games feature the ultimate in immersion and interactive game control? Or will the technology always be met with the same “meh” reception that this did:

Ah, Virtual Boy. Cool, awkward and headache-inducing all at the same time. Ahead of its time or a relic of the past? Discuss amongst yourselves.

Currently, high-end, kick ass gaming rigs like Blackbird are leading the way in providing a platform for tighter game mechanics, 3-D modelling and supremely immersive environment.

But how much further away is technology that allows us to play our favourite console and PC-based games in a fully immersive, virtual reality environment?

Kristin Reilly

Valve for Windows

FYI: This article was edited on 2/24 to match the article in CPU Magazine.

I wrote this article for the latest edition of CPU Magazine. CPU has not posted it on their site yet, and there may be a few edits - however I felt I should post it before my meeting with Microsoft at GDC. I'll likely write an updated article once we get some more perspective on the latest and greatest news from the Games for Windows initiative.

I'd like to start with an interesting (and valid) quote from Anita Frazier from NPD Group.

"The PC games market is greatly impacted by digital downloads and subscriptions, so there is an undetermined amount of PC games industry revenue that isn't reflected in retail sales. As we've seen from a number of our studies, the PC continues to be a top platform in terms of total game playing time, so I don't think this slight decline in retail sales is anything more than a reflection of a shifting of distribution channels..."

A little over a year ago, Microsoft was making all sorts of noise about its renewed Games for Windows initiative, touting it as the savior of PC gaming and acting like it was the most revolutionary thing since the invention of the joystick.

The Games for Windows vision was compelling; imagine walking into a game retailer and seeing a section of games dedicated to Games for Windows, all of which would support any approved gaming controller out of the box, and some of which would support “Tray and Play.”

Many industry players were interested in the concept of making the PC gaming experience easier, but some of us were a bit skeptical due to the fact that Microsoft was driving the initiative. Trouble is, Microsoft is notorious for starting major initiatives that barely get halfway through development before the company decides either to kill them or launch them. It’s sometimes hard to tell whether there is wide internal buy-in on such initiatives.

I have to admit, I was intrigued with the potential of Games for Windows, and I got caught up in the hype—until, that is, I saw Halo 2 with the Games for Windows moniker on it. Just when I thought things couldn’t get worse than an original Xbox port, I tried Shadowrun, which was equally bad. The lack of cross-platform gaming support really buried the program for me.

It was like fool’s gold, and I was one of many who were played by the biggest player in the industry. Perhaps GfW was not as compelling as we once hoped. Shortly after these fiascos, Peter Moore, corporate vice president of Microsoft's Interactive Entertainment Business division, decided to jump ship for EA. In the process, the director of Games for Windows stepped away from his role and was apparently replaced by someone else who I have yet to hear from.

So, where does that leave the initiative? Apparently it leaves a bunch of branded boxes on the shelves with an unknown future and some interesting marketing messages that have successfully generated more confusion over what “Games for Windows” actually means to the end user. On top of that, I’m starting to question whether Microsoft is capable of driving its commitment to PC gaming.

Now, before you start interpreting this as a funeral dirge for PC gaming in general, let me just say that we’ve all heard the rumors of PC gaming’s death over and over again, and like many, I’m tired of hearing them. PC gaming is not dying, so get over it. Valve is arguably the best PC game developer out there. Gabe Newell and his team make some of the best games ever, including the Half-Life series and Counter-Strike.

Over the years, Valve has done almost everything right, and while they’re quiet about it, the success of Steam is undeniable. Recently, Valve announced that Steamworks, a complete suite of publishing and development tools including such things as copy protection, social networking services, and server browsing, is now available free of charge to developers and publishers worldwide. In a nutshell, this system could significantly cut down on PC game piracy, which could in turn begin wooing developers and publishers back into the fold. And, of course, it will drive Steam into even more homes.

In implementing Steamworks, developers will gain access to real-time stat tracking, encryption and anti-piracy measures, voice chat, multiplayer matchmaking, and social networking. The buzz on the Internet seems to characterize this as “Games for Windows done right” and hails Valve as the saviors of PC gaming. If you haven’t tried Steam yet, I recommend you take a look. It’s the best game-distribution system on the planet, even remembering your purchases so that when you get a new PC, you can redownload them with no issue. In the meantime, don’t worry about PC gaming—it’s not going anywhere. It continues to grow, and there are new models of monetization coming into play, as well.

As for Games for Windows, well, if anyone at Microsoft would like to discuss this, please feel free to contact me and we’ll set up an interview for another column.

Greg Vederman Unboxes Blackbird

Greg Vederman unboxes Blackbird - you really have to watch until the end (the last part is hilarious, a bit over the top perhaps?). If you read PC Gamer in the past you'd know Greg does some pretty funny things - I remember the picture of him in his pink pyjamas - but this video, I can't even begin to describe it. Just check it out ;)

Guitar Hero Rules!

I love Guitar Hero 3, it's amazing how games like Guitar Hero 3 and Rock Band are paving the way for the music industry to monetize their business through video games. I saw this video and had to post it... warning -- not for the faint at heart....

Props to the team at CES!

I just noticed that our community team registered online at Youtube under the “HPBLACKBIRD” username. They took some great videos at CES featuring our very own Kristin Reilly, Mark Gerberman, Tyrell Kumlin, Greg Vederman, and more.

I would encourage you all to check them out –

I wanted to take a minute to thank the team for doing this, it was the first CES that I've ever missed. I was really disappointed that I couldn't be there, but I really had a great time in India and Dubai. Seeing these videos made my absence at CES a bit less painful as well :)

Here is a link for those of you who aren’t used to using Youtube.

38 Studios -- They're coming up!

Hello everyone - well, I just returned from 5 weeks away in India and Dubai - (what better way to cure my writers block). As I returned I was emailed by a friend at 38 Studios. Curt Schilling did a great interview with Ten Ton Hammer, and I wanted to share it with everyone. Obviously I want to thank Curt for the plug!.

38 Studios is truly a unique company, and when Curt talks about his benefits package he's not kidding. This is why I like Curt - his philosophies on how he treats his staff and builds his team are very much in line with my thinking. I do believe this is the next major chapter in his life, and when their game finally launches I think it's going to completely revolutionize the MMORPG industry.

Check out 38 Studios here!

I'm starting a new forum - it's time for you to join!

Many of the readers of this blog (and the articles I write for CPU and Custom PC) consist of Wall Street regulars, enthusiasts of technology, start-up owners, and early adopters. The forum we are creating is a great place to share ideas and concepts with like minded individuals such as yourself. I am starting this as a pilot and if it`s successful it will continue.

You may visit this group to discuss anything related to hi-tech companies, to pitch new ideas and technologies, and to learn more about the companies you’re investing in. I imagine it will be slow to start, but hopefully we'll build a new and interesting community. I am hoping to learn about new technologies along the way, you never know what might come out of it. In the meantime please excuse the work in progress, there will be many modifications along the way - especially during the beginning.

I am heading to Dubai and India for about five weeks, so I thought I would launch just before I left. I'll monitor it along the way - and I'll try and appoint some moderators as well.

So you're all welcome to join 328KPH.com Rahul Sood's official Tech Entrepreneur & Investor Forum.

It's Official: Halo 2 on the PC Sucks!

If you own a Gaming PC, or you're about to buy a high end Blackbird - don't waste your money on Halo 2 for the PC. This is easily the worst use of high performance hardware that I've seen in years (no offense Microsoft - but you should know better!).

Microsoft/Bungee, please don't do direct ports from the XBOX to the PC unless you improve the graphics and resolution! The experience that Halo 2 delivers is terrible, and you know damn well a PC can spit out graphics 100 times better than an XBOX 360 can.

This is like the worst example of Games for Windows - and certainly among the least compelling reason to buy a Windows Live Gold account.

I just wasted 30 minutes of my life installing this thing, now I have to clean it up. Friggin Half Life 2 is a thousand times better than this game and it's old!

Ugh.. what a disappointment.

Benchmarks are Wiggedy Wiggedy Whack...

I wrote this article for the latest edition of CPU Magazine. Remember, if you haven't had the opportunity to read this magazine you should go pick up a copy soon.

There has been a lot of speculation about AMD’s new Phenom processor, and up until now the chip’s performance benchmark scores vs. the competition’s were predicted to be somewhat underwhelming. I’d like to address that this month, as well as the validity of benchmarking as it pertains to the customer experience in general.

I like performance benchmarks, but I’m starting to think people are putting too much weight on them and not enough on the overall customer experience. This is roughly as silly as directly equating one’s physical strength to how much he can bench, or comparing drag racing to Formula One racing—there are some profound differences here.

When you really boil it down, no one cares about benchmarks when they are playing a game, churning out a report, or reading a medical image. Let’s face it, on the high end 300 points in 3DMark06 isn’t going to affect gameplay even at the highest resolution with maximum detail. Gamers care that their PCs display the best possible image while delivering the most compelling and most stable gaming experience. Users care that when they turn on their PC it boots reasonably quickly and works with all of their devices. If one of their components fails, they are looking for a simple way of replacing the component with the best access to customer support. Thus there are undeniable differences between overall experience and performance benchmarks. I like to refer to this internally as the “experience benchmark,” and it’s a tough one to measure because it’s so subjective.

Yes, there was a point when gamers thought the only things that mattered were frame rates, but I think that the tide is shifting. Ask any pro gamer to compare two similarly equipped PCs side by side running same game at the same resolution, and I guarantee you that he will have no clue which delivers the highest frame rate. He’ll most likely be inclined to choose the one that he thinks delivers the best image quality.

These changes are occurring because current hardware delivers incredibly high levels of performance and the software has not quite caught up yet, although some games are starting to deliver, like MS Flight Simulator X, Company of Heroes, and upcoming titles such as Hellgate London. Vista introduced new levels of complexity and experience to gamers and enthusiasts alike. Overall the initial experience of Vista sucked, but it has turned a corner and things are beginning to look up thanks to DirectX 10.

So again, I believe that performance benchmarks are not the true measure of a compelling experience. There are many more factors to consider when building and/or buying your next PC. You’ll want to consider operating noise, image quality, ease of access, ease of upgradeability, ease of replacing components, how “quick” it feels when you’re booting it up, storage space, stability, operating system usability, style and design, and, if you are a gamer, how well it delivers in the area of gameplay.

So, AMD decided to unveil Phenom running at 3.0GHz without showing actual benchmarks. What it showed was a game running smoothly with all details enabled, which makes perfect sense to me. And for the record, if you were to benchmark Phenom at 3GHz you would see that it kicks the living crap out of any current AMD or Intel processor—it is a stone cold killer (at 3GHz, now imagine how it would perform if they could squeek some more juice out of it?).

I’m guessing that AMD will be able to launch some parts at higher clocks than it is currently showing in its roadmaps, and if the company can get these chips on shelves in a timely fashion, I think it could be a major coup and could even be the impetus for the turnaround the company so desperately needs. Of course, Intel probably won’t get caught flat-footed, but AMD has to start somewhere.

It’s interesting to note that AMD isn’t showing benchmarks on a part that delivers the goods—perhaps it too is seeing that performance benchmarks are only a small piece of the overall experience puzzle. That said, I suspect there will be some more shaking up at AMD before the sun starts to shine green again.

...is Vista starting to kick ass?

I just heard that Microsoft dropped two patch Vista Fix Packs in order to solve some of the issues we have been seeing in Vista. As a matter of fact, I recently blogged about the issues I was experiencing in Microsoft Flight Sim X, among other games - and what do you know, I get an email in my inbox this morning asking me to download these patches.

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=938194

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=938979

So I downloaded and installed them - and now I'm flying through Friday Harbor on a float plane - at 2560x1600 with maximum detail enabled. It's so real, I can't even begin to explain the look/feel of the game. As I look down over the water I see the white crests of the waves gurgling in the middle of the bay. I did some whale watching on another flight - and the scenery & sites couldn't be more immersive. Try taking a helicopter through Vegas at night and if you aren't blown away I'll eat my hat!

I should probably apologize to the guys at Nvidia for giving them such a hard time on this, it's good to see that they're getting it right. It will be nice when they do the same for our previous customers who purchased PCs last year and are looking to upgrade to Vista now.

It turns out that I'm still viewing this in DX9 - not even DX10 yet, so let's see the difference when DX10 for FSX arrives.

Staying Close to your Roots part 2?

This is an extended version of the article I wrote for print this month while we were at Computex. It's a bit different from the normal topics, but something I've been wanting to write for awhile.

---------------------------

We are here in Taipei during Computex, I’ve been here since Saturday enjoying the torrential rain and sweltering heat. I would have to say this is the most productive Computex ever and I only spent one hour on the show floor.

By now you may have heard that OCZ recently acquired PC Power & Cooling. PC Power & Cooling is known for building high quality power supplies while OCZ produces performance components for PCs. If OCZ can leverage PC Power & Cooling’s expertise in design and scale the manufacturing without changing an iota of the quality it could be good.

So at Computex it was somewhat interesting for me to see a technology that I’m 95% sure that I’ve seen before being showcased at OCZ’s booth. It was some “brain scan” controller that you wear and attempt to play games. It sounds really lame, but it’s somewhat neat actually. Although it’s somewhat embarrassing when you wear it, the concept of using your jaw to “fire” and moving your head seems novel to some I’m sure. Personally I hate “wearable technology” when playing video games; it just doesn’t feel right to me. That said, it sure is far from OCZ’s roots, oddly enough. It seems as if they’re casting a wide net and seeing what they catch, hopefully that works for them.

This makes me reflect on a story I wrote awhile ago about how in business it’s important to stay close to your roots in order to be successful long term. Well, one company in the memory space has remained pretty close to their roots and it seems to have done them well.

I believe there is no better enthusiast memory manufacturer than Corsair. Corsair is known for their quality and consistency, and when we experience a problem with their memory they do everything they can to get us up and running in short order. We have tried all types of performance memory, including Crucial, Kingston, OCZ, and many others – and there have been times when we tried to switch – but we ended up returning to Corsair.

I remember one time we were using Crucial Ballistix memory and almost every single freaking chip we sold ended up being returned, sometimes more than once. It was a total disaster, and there was really no explanation for it – although we believed the memory was unable to handle the high voltage they were designed for. Props to Crucial for honouring the warranty, but the cost incurred by Voodoo was insane and unacceptable; although we probably wouldn’t have switched to another manufacturer so quickly if they had not tried to convince us that we were the only ones experiencing such problems.

Since then we switched back to Corsair and haven’t looked back.

There are also many commodity memory manufacturers who feel that by slapping a fancy heat spreader on their chips they can “fool” the enthusiast community to believe the memory is “designed for gaming”. In fact, I found one manufacturer who copied the “Dominator” series heat spreader from Corsair – almost like they are using the same machine to make them!

Let me be the first to tell you that there is much more substance to enthusiast memory than a fancy heat spreader on a PCB. In fact, very few manufacturers really understand what it takes to commit to creating low latency, consistently high quality chips. Corsair spends the time to batch test their modules, they also employ real enthusiasts who understand the complexities of performance.

Corsair works with people from Nvidia, Intel, AMD, and other companies to ensure they deliver to their promise. Most importantly Corsair does *not* switch chips/components without informing us – and their review parts performance on par with their production parts. This is NOT consistent with some of their competitors - and thus one of the big reasons we use them.

Perhaps Corsair will be a target for acquisition from someone like Micron, Kinston, or Samsung. Although there are only so many quality chips an enthusiast manufacturer can hand pick and produce before they become just another commodity.

Let’s hope that if Corsair does get acquired they don’t screw up what they do well, and equally important they should stay close to their roots.