Forwards from Phil: Feb. 25, 2008
February 25th, 2008 by PhilMan, hard to believe February’s already almost over, isn’t it? Maybe we can finally move on out of winter so people will stop setting ice traps in front of our building. Seriously, there was a puddle of ice this morning directly in front of our apartment stairs, and that’s the only place there was any ice, so of course I fell on it. I’m not bitter at all, no.
- What’s got two thumbs and hits like a Mack truck full of bombs and lasers? Master Hand and Crazy Hand, of course. Crazy Hand kind of walks like a nutcase, but apart from new animations, the two hands appear to be pretty much the same.
- This dude ordered a bagged slice of vegetarian pizza, and got his pizza… and a tube of Vaseline. Okay, seriously Pizza Pizza employees, WTF? Either this is staged, or you folks are just messed up. A tube of Vaseline?!
- Don’t you love it when adults try to listen to kids toys and get freaked out? This woman thinks her child’s Elmo Knows Your Name doll is threatening to kill her son James. What, is it going to start moving when everyone sleeps, malevolent red sparks inside its plastic, otherwise innocent eyes? Get a grip. Your doll is not saying ‘Kill James.’ Sheesh.
- People sure do like building stuff out of bookshelves - first a staircase, and now an igloo of books to surround a bed. Kind of neat unless you’re claustrophobic. I’d end up hitting the side with my hand or something and punching books off my shelves.
- Anyone play Pangya, which seems to be a golf MMO? (Albatross18 in the States, I think.) Apparently it’s coming to the PSP. This is moderately interesting to me, as it combines two of my favorite things: sports games I suck at, and MMOs.
- Yahtzee Croshaw takes a swing at the GDC Awards, the year 2007, and more. When you get compared to a magical hand that shoots bees, it doesn’t matter what you do, because you’re going to f*cking lose.
- Waxing nerdy for a sec, Sony is giving away (yes, GIVING AWAY) their new development engine, PhyreEngine. The weird part is that it appears to be multi-console - from PS3 to other platforms with just a compile, since it seems to be built on open standards like OpenGL. Even weirder, Sony’s already built two games with it, Dirt and GripShift. Theoretically, this could boost development across all consoles, but especially the PS3.
- Set the creepy-o-meter to “goosebumps”: the Dyatlov Pass mystery.
Nine experienced cross-country skiers hurriedly left their tent on a Urals slope in the middle of the night at around -30 degrees Celsius for no obvious reason, casting aside skis, food, boots and most of their clothes. Soon they would be dead, some with injuries more suited to car crash victims, and apparently dosed with radiation. Their deaths are still unexplained, 49 years later. The Mystery of the Dyatlov Pass Accident.
- 41 hilarious science fair experiments. Well, okay, I wouldn’t go so far as to call them hilarious, but some of these are pretty funny.
- Aw, hell, here we go: Phil Harrison, head of Sony Computer Entertainment’s PlayStation division, resigns. Taking his place? Kaz Hirai, successor to Ken “F*ckin’ Crazy” Kutarugi. Sony appears to have just consolidated their PS divisions, in a way, and Hirai’s done some good work - here’s hoping he can keep up the work Harrison was doing. As for Harrison? Well, rumor has it he’s joining the staff at Atari. Atari?!
- Jonathan Coulton performing ‘Still Alive’ on Rock Band at GDC. It’s pretty neat. I’m looking forward to this almost as much as Greg, especially since I see it’s due to be bargain priced at $0.99.
- Prepare to lose what’s left of your life: the sequel to Puzzle Quest has been reannounced. PQ: Galactrix is Puzzle Quest in new sci-fi trappings and with a hex-shaped board. That should change gameplay in a significant manner. Hopefully this time they can leave the cheating AI out.
- For those of you who are puzzle fans, or if you simply haff tvelve metchsteek, BBPS brings you an awesome Professor Layton wallpaper. I’ll probably be setting this as my desktop later today, in fact.
- A look at Square-Enix’s WiiWare title, Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a King reveals it to be pretty much not a Final Fantasy game, much less a Crystal Chronicles game, other than the fact that the dev team borrowed CC art resources as a cost-saving measure. It’s almost SimFantasyKingdom - basically you run this town, attract people and adventurers to it, make sure everyone’s happy, and rely on those aforementioned adventurers to do the dungeon exploring for you. It’s an interesting look at the evolution of a title.