The Rocky Mountain Collegian

March 26th, 2007

Oops - Oh My

Hey guys! How was your Spring Break? Yeah, yeah, I know I’m late. I think. It took me a week to get school stuff out of the way! Also: I started using Google Docs, which solved a bunch of issues that were preventing me from actually being able to write blog entries on a regular basis. I could get into specifics, but I think it would be better if I just told you to never, ever use recent versions of Microsoft Works. They save in a format that no one will be able to open on their computer no matter how hard they try, and you will flunk out of school and have to go home and tell your parents that you spent all your money on booze. That might happen anyway if you’re a college student, but it’s best to avoid anything that could steer you in that direction, y’know?

Catching up on some recent news, first — the Playstation 3 officially launched in Europe this past Friday. Unlike in America, where people were shot while waiting in line to buy one, 100 people who bought a PS3 in London received 46-inch HDTVs and taxi rides home according to the BBC. Isn’t that nice? It makes you wonder what Sony’s thinking! I’m reluctant to even guess, but this interview with Sony UK boss Ray Maguire over at gamesindustry.biz has a few hubris-soaked soundbites: “You can’t compare [the XBox 360 and the Playstation 3]. If you’re comparing the two we would have had the same technology and we’d be at the same price — we’re not.” Unfortunately, the Playstation 3 <i>is</i> comparable in the sense that it was outsold in February by the Nintendo Wii, Nintendo DS, Playstation Portable, Playstation 2, XBox 360, and even the Gameboy Advance, according to the NPD Group. Of course, that was only in America, so maybe Sony UK has what it takes to turn things around on the other side of the Atlantic? I have no idea!

Forget about $600 game consoles for a moment, however, to take a look at Understanding Games, a pretty great flash-based attempt at introducing the basic concepts of games and game design from those guys at pixelate.de. There are three episodes so far, starting with the underlying concepts behind a simple game like Pong, and going from there. All three episodes are surprisingly entertaining and have great music, and I strongly recommend checking them out. As they say — you might just learn something!

Episode 1 - Episode 2 - Episode 3

This entry was posted on Monday, March 26th, 2007 at 10:38 am and is filed under Game Guy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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