Pocket Universe

Finally! After what seems like years of iPod ad campaigns, Apple is finally starting to advertise the Mac again with their Get a Mac ad campaign. It looks like they�re finally trying to summarize the Mac�s advantages over the PC in short, 30-second sound bites. If you haven�t already seen the ads on TV, you can check them out here.

I�ve always liked the idea of a pocket universe, an object that appears small, but actually contains an entire self-contained parallel universe. It is limited in size, but contains unlimited potential.

With that in mind, I have changed the name of my blog. While appearing simple to the outside viewer, it has endless possibilities with regards to content. The original name was just a placeholder anyway, and this new name seems much more lyrical.

Please celebrate in whatever manner you deem appropriate.

When I read truth, I love to share it. And thanks to 43 Folders, I found a fantastic article about living a backlogged life. The gist of the article is this: At one point in time, if we missed something, it was gone: a phone call, a TV show, whatever. But now, thanks to the wonders of technology, these time sinks are now collected and sorted and aggregated for future enjoyment. Instead of letting technology free us, it has removed our ability to let go of the past.

As I’ve been trying to get my life organized, this point particularly resonated with me. As I try to get my life organized, I have realized that the more you hang on to the past, the more difficult it is to enjoy the present. The more I worry about sorting and deleting and responding to my old email, the less time I spend actually working on things that I need to do today. And sure, I have hundreds of hours of shows recorded on the TiVo, but which are the ones that I watch as soon as they are recorded, and which are the ones I think that I might get to someday, maybe?

This has also affected my life in a purely financial sense. A long time ago, I read a great book by the Motley Fool entitled You Have More Than You Think. The authors offered a piece of advice about purchasing luxury items which has great application to daily life: Don’t buy something new unless you’ve used up what you already have. For example, don’t buy a magazine at the newsstand if you have a magazine you haven’t read sitting on the coffee table at home. Don’t buy a new book if you have a shelf of unread books in your office. It’s really a simple rule, and it’s very lenient if you’re using what you have. I have been trying to follow that rule, in general, but recently I have gotten very specific in applying it.

A few weeks ago, I was feeling very poor, and feeling like my spending was getting out of control. In an effort to get ahead of the game, I decided to go into lockdown. I have so many unread books sitting around, and so many unwatched DVDs, and so many unplayed video games, that I could literally not buy any media for probably a year, and still have plenty to do in my free time. So, until I have made some headway on what I already own, I am not buying anything new. I expect that at some point, something will come along for which I will bend these rules a bit, but I hope that will be the exception rather than the norm. Until then, I hope to find a new appreciation for the things I already own. Maybe I’ll finally get to that great book that I’ve heard so much about, or that videogame series that I never finished. It’s as if my entire life were leading up to this point. I’ve collected all this crap my whole life; time to start enjoying it.

STAR WARS!

STAR WARS STAR WARS STAR WARS STAR WARS STAR WARS STAR WARS STAR WARS!

I don�t know how I missed this last week, but Penny Arcade received a press release listing seven of the songs from the upcoming Guitar Hero II. They are:

�Psychobilly Freakout”—Reverend Horton Heat
�Strutter”—KISS
�Who Was in My Room Last Night”—Butthole Surfers
�War Pigs”—Black Sabbath
�Arterial Black”—Drist
�You Really Got Me”—Van Halen
�YYZ”—Rush

Rush?!!?? YYZ?? Not only is this fantastic from a lead-guitar point of view, but it will include a second track for the bass line. YYZ is one of those incredible bass songs, and my mouth is watering waiting for this one!

The dictionary defines �harbinger” as �one that presages or foreshadows what is to come.” As an exercise, look around your world today and see if you can find something that is a harbinger, something that indicates what is to come.

For you Mac users out there, I have published a few pictures from my previous trips to E3 in 2003 and 2004. Each evening during the week, I will update it with pictures from this year. To use these pictures as your screen saver, go to the Apple menu, System Preferences, Desktop & Screen Saver, and click the Screen Saver tab. Then from the list of screen savers, select .Mac, and click Options. Type in my .Mac membership name (bates), make sure the slide show is checked, and you should be set! As new pictures are uploaded, your machine will automatically download them and update your screen saver.

You can read a report from the Sony E3 2006 press conference at Kotaku, but let me give you a few highlights:

Lots of new games for the PS3.

Sony free online service will do everything that Xbox Live does, except twice as fast and much shinier. Oh, and it will cook you dinner.

You can buy new levels and items for your games. Yay.

The new PS3 games will be pretty much like PS2 games, except with better graphics

The PS3 controller will be wireless, and have tilt sensors in it, except without the position sensors of the Wii controller.

And what�s with the faux-Wii controller? Gee Sony, weren�t you just talking about the �gimmicks” that the other systems are using? This implementation is much more limited than what the Wii controller will be able to do. Since Sony and Microsoft already have tons of overlap for third-party games, that pretty much guarantees that the PS3 version will not use the tilt sensor, or will use it just for a few little gimmicky extras that no one will care about.

Oh, and I forgot to mention the price: $499 for a version with a 20GB hard drive and some features stripped out (HDMI, Wi-Fi), or $599 for a fully-featured version with a 60GB hard drive. Contrast that with the Xbox 360 price of $299 for the version without a hard drive, and $399 for the version with. Or the Wii, rumored to be between $199 and $250.

Here�s the thing: I�m the target market for these guys, and I love my PlayStation 2…and I didn�t care about the Sony press conference. I saw nothing there that makes me excited. In fact, I see the potential for skyrocketing development costs that will result in the same old games, except shinier and high-definition. Right now, I feel like people are going to start realizing that the emperor has no clothes. I predict that people are going to pay $599 for a system, and say, �I spent all that money for THIS?” While I don�t think it will lead to another videogame crash, I will go on record with my prediction that this generation of PlayStation will be a very slow starter. Maybe a few years down the road, when HDTVs are more commonplace, and the price has dropped. But not this holiday season, and not the next. It hurts me to say it, but that�s how I feel.

How many of you know someone who has never seen a movie, or watched a TV show, or read a book? None? Of course not. Its preposterous.

Now, how many of you know someone, maybe even within your own family, who has never played a video game?”

And with those words, Reggie Fils-Amie eloquently stated Nintendos strategy: to expand the market by attracting people who have never played video games.

Once again, you can read a painstakingly-detailed description of the Nintendo E3 2006 keynote over at Kotaku, but let me give you the short version:

The Nintendo DS is selling like hotcakes laced with caffeine and slathered in crack.

People laughed at the idea of the DS, but now non-traditional games like Nintendogs and Brain Age are selling to a different demographic

The Wii controller…

The second part of the controller (the nunchuk”) has an analog stick for movement. However, it also contains a tilt and motion sensor, so you can do things like slash a sword with your right hand, then block with your left. Or if you come to a door (using your right hand as the gun), you can open the door by making a push the door open” motion with your left hand. It looks really, incredibly easy to use, and will open up whole new areas of gameplay.

But what about the games? After all, whats a new system without games? Well here are a few for starters: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess; Metroid Prime 3: Corruption; WarioWare: Smooth Moves; Super Mario Galaxy; SUPER MARIO GALAXY!!!!!!111!!!!!; a new Sonic game, a new Rayman game, and some whole new franchises like Project: H.A.M.M.E.R. and Disaster: Day of Crisis. Basically, nearly everything looked interesting, fresh, and looks like it will use the controller in a multitude of ways. I have not been this excited about a new system for a long long time.

Oh, and for the GameCube: Super Paper Mario, which, again, looks unreal. Think a 2D platformer, with a bunch of mind-bending 3D effects. Really, you have to see the video.

And the DS? Yoshis Island 2, Starfox DS, Mario Hoops Three-on-Three, Elite Beat Agents, Mario vs. DK: March of the Minis…the list goes on and on.

Lets see, what else…? Oh, the Wii will be connected to the internet even while its sleeping, so a game developer can push new items or levels, or a friend can visit your Animal Crossing town and drop off a present. Cool.

And then they invited a guy from the audience to play a four-man tennis match with Shigeru Miyamoto, Fils-Amie, and Satoru Iwata. The gameplay looked easy to pick up, and just fun. Oh, and 27 games will be playable on the show floor.

So thats it. I am thrilled about the Wii, and I cant wait to try it out! I will give more reports tomorrow night, after I try the games out. I think this could revitalize the gaming market in a way no one has ever imagined.

It�s late, and I�m bored and tired, so I give you The Cynic�s Guide to the Microsoft E3 Presentation. Enjoy. I�ll report back later if anything blows my skirt up.

It looks like E3 is finally over and done with, and I know everyone is waiting with breathless anticipation for my ranking of the various consoles. Wait no longer!

1. Wii

After the initial skepticism about the “revolutionary” new console from Nintendo, the Wii started out strong with a two-hour wait to try it out. By Thursday, the wait was four hours, and the crowds didn’t die down the rest of the week. Nintendo finally showed off games for its new system (26 to be exact), and reactions were almost universally positive. There are still some details that need to be ironed out, such as a little too much sensitivity when using the pointer. But other than that, the Wii had a tremendous showing, with many highly-anticipated games the demonstrated that the new controller is not just a gimmick.

The Wii has everyone buzzing about its potential, and for the first time in a long time, it really got me excited about the potential for completely new types of gameplay. However, unlike some other systems (see below), they actually had a solid group of games to back up their claims, including some high-profile third-party games like Red Steel. Add in the always-on connectivity, the ability to play classic games by Nintendo and others, and the added surprises with the controller, and you have the smash hit of the show, hands down.


1.5. Nintendo DS

Okay, this isn’t technically one of the big three consoles, but I had to include the Nintendo DS in the mix, simply because, again, it had such a large variety of games to show off. There were a surprising number of first-party Nintendo titles being shown, including many sequels to old favorites: New Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, Kirby, Mario vs. Donkey Kong 2, Star Fox DS, and Yoshi’s Island 2. Then you have some surprising new games like Mario Hoops 3-on-3, and the completely bizarre but engrossing Elite Beat Agents, about a group of male cheerleaders.

And just like the Wii, the DS games displayed many examples of new and unique gameplay techniques. Tap the screen in Mario Hoops to control the rate and position of your dribbling. Tap in time with the music in Elite Beat Agents to perform the correct cheers. You can direct characters in Mario vs. Donkey Kong 2 Phantom Hourglass. In the third-party game Spectrobes, you can excavate fossils using the touch screen, and then get rid of dust and particles by blowing on the screen (thanks to the built-in microphone). And I haven’t even talked about the Wi-Fi internet connectivity. Developers keep coming up with more and more ways to use the unique advantages of the DS.

As for the hardware, the functional DS has been replaced by the sexy DS Lite, which is both smaller and lighter than the original, with brighter screen and a glossy white exterior just like the very best Apple products. This system is so impressive that there have been lines around the block in Japan just to get one, and they have been selling out consistently for months now. And remember, this isn’t even some new system; it is just an update to the current one. When an updated version continues to sell out, you know you have a hit on your hands.


2. Xbox 360

I will admit that the Xbox 360 games at the show looked excellent. However, I was a little put off by the number of first-person shooters. Oh look, this one is in the snow! This one is in the jungle! Oh, and this one takes place in a war-torn post-apocalyptic city! How original! There were however some stand-out titles that I saw, which I will discuss at a later date.

What really fascinates me about the 360 is the Xbox Live features, specifically Xbox Live Arcade. With cheap, simple, fun games that you can purchase and download, the 360 looks to be a great platform for the small developer who doesn’t have the multi-million-dollar budgets of an EA. And you will be able to play Lumines Live over Xbox Live, which almost sells the console right there. I think the system has a lot of potential, which pains me to say since I have been such a Sony fan since the first PlayStation. However, at $200 less than the PS3, it looks like a much better deal.


3. PlayStation 3

Microsoft’s Peter Moore recommended buying a Wii. No no, he hasn’t gone crazy; he simply pointed out that instead of a PlayStation 3, you could buy an Xbox 360 and a Wii for the same price. And you have to admit, he has a point. At $599 for a console, the games for the PlayStation 3 would have to be pretty impressive.

And honestly, they just weren’t. Sure, they looked pretty, but they were pretty versions of the same old gameplay. A sword-fighting game? A World War II(-ish) shooter? A prettier high-definition version of the same old Gran Turismo game? At least the pretty graphics will give me nice dreams while I fall asleep from the gameplay.

You know, I’m a huge Sony fan, and they really wouldn’t have had to do much to impress me. Sadly, they couldn’t even do that much. I mean, yeah the grass in Madden looks nicer, but in the end, the gameplay is still the same. I saw nothing to lead me to believe that the PS3 would take gaming to the next level, other than a lot of empty promises about Sony’s online service being the “Xbox Live killer,” and some stuff about how easy it will be to buy music and movies online. Yawn. I was not impressed by the PS3, and at this point, unless they come up with some amazing games between now and November, I predict that the 360 will beat them this holiday season, if not longer. I really wish I had something better to say about Sony, but I really don’t.

For those of you on a Mac with iPhoto, or with an RSS-capable newsreader, you can now subscribe to my E3 2006 photocast. Either click on the link above, or go into iPhoto and select File: Subscribe to Photocast, and paste in the URL. You will then be subscribed to my photocast, which you can view at your leisure, place on your desktop, or set as your screensaver. Just go nuts! Later, I will post the accompanying guide to the various celebrities I ran into at the show.

After much consideration, I am finally ready to reveal my favorite game of E3.

Game of the Show: Spore

Spore is almost maddeningly difficult to describe. (However, the flash intro on the web site actually does a pretty good job of summarizing the game; go check it out.) Adding to the difficulty is the fact that Spore appears to have a near-infinite amount of depth and replayability. With that in mind, I am going to keep my description short and to the point. Otherwise, I would end up spending hours talking about it.

Spore was created by Will Wright, the genius behind SimCity and The Sims. It is a sandbox game, where you guide the development of a race from a single-celled organism to exploration and conquest of the entire galaxy. There are six basic phases, some of which directly correspond to other games. You start off in a two-dimensional tide pool, eating and avoiding larger creatures. As you eat, you gain DNA points that allow you to customize your creature; you can add better flagella, for example, or something that allows you to attack would-be predators. Eventually, you graduate up the creature phase, where the game switches to 3D, in the water and, eventually, on land, as you develop the appropriate appendages. Again, you eat, attack, gain DNA points, mate, lay eggs, and use those points to develop your creature even further.

Here’s where it gets good: You can modify your creatures through a spectacular creature editor that lets you choose mouths, eyes, limbs, hands, feet, weapons, and decorations for your creature. Depending on how far along your creature has developed, you get different sets of items to choose from, and what you choose affects your creature’s strength, speed, stealth, and eating habits (herbivore or carnivore). The amazing thing is the amount of control you have over every step of the creation process. Not only do you place parts on your creature, but you can alter their size, shape, angle…you can make a creature with two mouths instead of one, or something with two legs, each of which ends in two more legs…you can put a hand on your tail, or have six arms and four legs. You have infinite possibilities for what you can create, and the amazing part is that whatever you make is procedurally animated, so it knows how to walk, attack, cheer, and play.

Get comfortable, because we still have a long way to go. Once you design your creature, you can then choose how to color and texture it. Want a black creature with white stripes? Done. What about dark blue with red ridges down its back? Easy. What about a mottled purple scaly coat, with maroon stripes and yellow polka dots? Not a problem. You can create a base texture and layer up to three other textures on top of it, and the end results are amazing. Will Wright has said that their goal is to let someone create a creature in a few minutes that it would take a Pixar artist a week to design, and from what I can tell, they have done it. I imagine that I could spend weeks just designing new creatures. Wright even pointed out that with his previous games, they made these fantastic editors that were only really used by maybe ten percent of the players. So what is the point of sitting around designing cool creatures, if you’re the only one who sees them? Read on….

Okay, so now you have your creature designed and evolved. Eventually it becomes sentient, which means that you switch from controlling one creature, to controlling an entire race of creatures. At this point, it switches to a tribal game, much like Black & White or Populous. Now you influence your creatures by providing huts or tools or weapons or musical instruments, to control how they act and what they do. After a while, you switch to the city phase (à la SimCity) where you help develop architecture and technology as your city takes form. And like the creature phase, you have a building editor, where you can design your own edifices if you don’t like the ones provided for you. (More on that below….) You can also use or design vehicles for your creatures, either walking vehicles, tanks, or planes. Again, a full editor is available for each of these.

As you develop and branch out, you will run into other cities on your planet. At that point, it switches to a civilization game (like Civilization, natch) where you choose how to deal with the other inhabitants of your planet. You can invade them, defend against invasion, try to make peace, trade…whatever you want. One way or another, you will eventually have control over your entire planet.

Then you develop space travel.

Yep, you get a spaceship (or design it) and travel out through your solar system. Here is where the space phase starts. You discover other planets, some of which are uninhabitable, and some of which might have other creatures. You can choose to place a colony in a sealed bubble, or you can choose instead to terraform the planet to give it an atmosphere that can support life. At that point, you can colonize the planet, or just abduct some of your own indigenous creatures and plant them on the planet. And if you’re lucky, you may find an ancient artifact that you can use to upgrade your technology.

Once you’re done with the local solar system, it’s time to travel out through the galaxy. In stages, you travel farther and farther away, discovering other solar systems, each with its own set of planets. Along the way, you will discover other cities and other civilizations. Will these people worship you as a god? Will they want to trade with you? If they are friendly, then how will they react when you try to abduct one of them? Or maybe they’ll just attack you outright. So maybe you retaliate and destroy their city…or their planet. Oops, it turns out that it was just one colony of a much more powerful race, and now your homeworld is under attack. Are you going to go back and help them, or just keep exploring the galaxy? After all, there are literally millions of solar systems out there to discover….

So you go from a single cell to conquering other solar systems. To call this game “epic” would be an understatement. But I haven’t even gotten to the best part yet: Each of the other solar systems in your galaxy is populated with creatures and cities and civilizations from other players. Read that sentence again. When you play, you are designing your own unique creature, and the computer is watching what you build and how you play. That information gets uploaded to the internet, and then downloaded to other players’ computers for them to discover. At the same time, the millions of stars in your system contain data downloaded from other players. While you are not playing against those players directly, the computer will control those civilizations and play them in the same way that the original players did. That’s the genius of this game: It takes the universe of other players and playstyles, and turns it into a literal universe to explore and interact with. The content will never get old, and there will always be something new to discover.

Now, remember all those editors I talked about earlier? There’s the creature editor, flora, buildings, vehicles, and spaceships, and maybe a few others I don’t know about. Well, when you design something in one of those editors, it again gets uploaded to the internet, and downloaded to everyone’s individual machines, and their content comes to you. So that means that when you want to, say, get a fighter for your creatures, you can choose from ones designed by thousands of other players. Not only will those selections be sorted by popularity, but your previous design choices will also influence the recommendations. Oh, and if you like something by a particular players, you can bookmark them, and other items they design will be recommended more highly in the future. Basically, it’s like an Amazon recommendation system for in-game design ideas.

So that’s the game in a nutshell. I haven’t even gone into detail about many other things, like the fact that how you play your creature early on affects how it acts socially, or that you can collect other creatures that you have scanned into “gotta catch ’em all”-type trading cards, or that you can develop a race of weak creatures who are more powerful because they hunt in packs. I sat through a 15-minute demo, and I already have more information than I can succinctly share. Personally, I imagine just spending days and days designing various creatures and spaceships. It seems like the game is whatever you want to make of it. If you like the creature phase, just play that. If you want city building, then work on that. It seems almost too good to be true, but if even half of what has been planned comes to fruition, this could be the be-all and end-all of sim games. It comes out in 2007. I can’t wait.