Japanese game shows are legendary for being more extreme (and absurd) than their American counterparts. Chris Farley immortalized the concept in a classic SNL sketch, and MXC and Ninja Warrior have both achieved great success dubbed and subtitled on American television. A big part of their appeal is how demanding they are compared to U.S. game shows. Only a few people have actually won Ninja Warrior in its 23 seasons on the air, and MXC is a constant comedy of failure and pain.
Tower defense games have taught us little. We already knew that defending castles from baddies was fun and that legions of weenies are the key to success in most real-time strategy situations. What other insights have they to offer?
Making a video game requires an incredible amount of work. It requires people skilled in many disciplines to work together for thousands of hours merging visual art, computer programming, game design, sound design, and music composition into a fun game. The Indie Stone is a Scottish indie development studio started, like so many others, by industry vets who were tired of corporate restrictions and wanted to make the crazy games they had always imagined.
Last week in New York, I saw the new show Otherworldly: Optical Delusions and Small Realities at the Museum of Arts and Design, at Columbus Circle near the edge of Central Park, between Broadway and Eighth. Below is the museum’s description of the show:
Video games consoles have long wanted to be more than just consoles. Nintendo Japan called the NES the Famicom because they wanted to make it the sole family computer. Obviously that didn't work out, and most efforts to make consoles into all-in-one entertainment systems have had similar fates. Sony has done the best job with the Playstation consoles, probably because they have experience with other types of electronics that most video game companies do not.
Making bread from scratch is extremely difficult. Painstakingly following instructions does not necessarily guarantee successful results. Baking delicious homemade bread takes practice, skill, and frankly, a level of real culinary artistry.
Do you remember when video games came on tiny chips in plastic cartridges? When the CD and 3D graphics just meant ugly games with long load times? Before epic cinematics, spoken dialog, or cordless controllers? Do you still have all of your old games and lament that the consoles, cords, and controllers required to play them have either been stolen by exes or broken while moving apartments?
While a lot of internet threats are rather over-hyped, there are some serious things to be cautious of when going online. Probably the biggest risk to the average internet user is malicious software. Commonly knows as "malware," this term refers to any program that exists solely to do harm. This may include damaging your computer or accessing your data without you knowing. Viruses, trojans, and spyware are all forms of malware. Now, malware can seriously mess up your system, and the idea of s...
Besides Killing Floor, I played a bit of The Witcher over the weekend. If you're curious about the game now is the perfect time. It's on sale on Steam, and the sequel is being released early next year. Though the game is three years old, it's still one of the best western rpgs on the PC. Here are some quick impressions on the game:
A Way Out of the Overload How do we simplify? There's a welter of information, advice, techniques, schools and every imaginable video tape available on the market to answer that question for you. In making a selection from this movable feast you'd want to take into account the background and credentials of the person offering you a way out of the overload. That's assuming you didn't just throw up your hands in exasperation and walk away from the task entirely.
"Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication." -Leonardo da VinciLearning a kata requires that you go through several stages. First you have to learn the basic pattern and the techniques. Then you have to perfect what you've learned. Then you have to deconstruct what you've learned and perfected in order to truly understand what the kata is teaching you vis a vis close quarter engagement.
When I trained at Honbu I used to keep one of the towels reserved for cleaning the floor at the end of class close by me so that I could sop up the sweat that gathered in puddles on the floor beneath me during wazapractice. During one such class, I took advantage of a momentary break in the training to clean my space with the towel. When I was finished I lightly tossed it toward a support pillar on the main floor of the dojo for later use. “Don’t throw!” Kaicho yelled. “Place down on floor.” ...
Scenario: it's late at night, the roads are completely empty and you are stuck at the longest light ever. Solution: don't run a red- change it to green yourself. Avoid a ticket, save yourself some time (and perhaps a little gas).
A look at Aquaria Last week I made a post about the Humble Indie Bundle (http://www.wolfire.com/humble). It's a small online charaty drive where you could buy five indie games for any price you wanted.
As 2009 comes to a close, the Telegraph presents a compilation of this past year's wackiest inventions. As always, here at WonderHowTo, we are inspired and impressed by ingenuity. The contraptions below range from utter silliness (engagement ring bra) to downright amazing (see-through concrete). Check it out.
How to transfer iTunes from PC to Mac You want to switch from PC to Mac and you want to take your iTunes library with you? There are several ways to move iTunes from your Windows PC to your new Mac. You can manually move all your iTunes contents to an external hard drive and from it to your Mac, or you can use a software like CopyTrans TuneSwift that does the job for you. Let's start with the easier way!
We have no control on the weather yet it is a part of our lives which influence what we do, what we eat, what we wear and many times where we live. How did people predict the weather before there was the Internet, television, radio or the weatherperson with all of their gadgets?
A press release should be about news. It should have a sense of urgency about it and grab the reader’s attention from the outset. A good press release must quickly answer the journalist’s immediate questions:
The trend of online video sharing came to the mainstream with popularization of YouTube, which let users view, submit and share video clips. YouTube started off in the year 2005, and quickly became one of the most visited websites on the internet. Sensing the emerging trend, large companies like Google joined the trail and launched their own video sharing sites (Google later bought YouTube).
Obesity has ballooned into a worldwide epidemic. The World Health Organization estimates that 2.3 billion adults will be overweight and 700 million will be obese by 2015. Over 20 million children are overweight today. The reasons for these distressing figures are common knowledge: The international switch to high sugar, high fat, low nutrient processed junk foods prompted by global fast food chains and their advertising; the increasingly sedentary nature of jobs; children playing video games ...
superglue someones eyelids shut while they're sleeping pepper spray them up the nose to wake them up
A Self-Protection Guide 1) You can help protect yourself from violent crimes.
Smartphones are crazy awesome. You can do your banking, track your children, find directions, and even pretend to have a mustache. The only thing that these personal supercomputers are missing is physical interaction with the environment.
If you've ever been inside of a real laboratory, you probably noticed how expensive the equipment is. You'd never be able to afford even just one of those ultra high-tech machines required to splice genes or split atoms. Even the lesser machines can be prohibitively costly, including a stir plate.
This morning, I received a message from a friend who was reading a hack log, and she had some questions about the commands used. This got me thinking, as Linux has a ton of commands and some can be archaic, yet useful. We are going to go over everything you need to know to read a hack log and hopefully implant the steps in your head for future use.
Diet = Die or Eat As Biological definition, food is defined as; any substance consumed to provide nutritional support for the body. It is usually of plant or animal origin, and contains essential nutrients, such as carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, or minerals.
In this article, I'll show you how to create a simple yet effective way of scaring off intruders. Of course, there are methods around this approach, but it's great for office pranks and general fun. The project requires a little background knowledge in electronics and circuitry, like reading schematics and using a soldering iron.
Can a free cloud-based video editor that lives in your browser replace iMovie? In three words: yes, it can. But whether you should use it instead of iMovie or an equivalent depends not on the functionality of the editor you need, as WeVideo can do what most of what iMovie does, but on what you need to do with your videos once they're finished.
There's only a few week left until costumes and candy take over the streets, which means they'll be more and more seven-letter words in the Scrabble Bingo of the Days that relate to the Fall season, horror movies, and of course… Halloween. Below you'll find bingo words relevant such films as Halloween, Children of the Corn and The Wicker Man.
Dead Island (PC, PS3, 360) had the worst launch of any game in recent memory. The wrong version of the game was released on PC, matchmaking was down for three days on PC, saves were deleted without notice making people start from scratch, and the Feminist Whore (a file found describing one of the character's skills) fiasco. The game just wasn't ready for release.
Shadows of the Dammed (360/PS3) is a polarizing game. It's not shy of being crass and crude. Go ahead and judge the game by the following examples (click to enlarge):
Facebook games are ostensibly all about connecting their players. Yet, in many ways they exist on an isolated island. That's one of the reasons traditional gamers and game franchises have avoided Facebook in the past. And all of the breakout hits so far on Facebook have been cheap PC game ripoffs from the 90s, like FarmVille and ports of other popular casual games.
The developing team Techland gets a free pass. Having thoroughly enjoyed their previous title, Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood, this sequel was bought on day one by good ol' fashion blind faith. After playing for most of today, it's still to early to tell if the game is a mess or a fun romp. Here are some first impressions.
The order was given months ago: Build me a royal garden.
So, you just bought Photoshop. It's time to familiarize yourself with the rudimentary tools. Let's start at the very beginning!
The philosophy of street art is a long and complex one. This is just the first in a series of the individual street art philosophys i have come across.
The Xbox 360 is America's video game system. It was designed in America, it has better market share in America than anywhere else, and it has the most overtly macho game catalog of any console. For many Xbox fanboys, gaming heaven is shooting hordes of really well-animated things in the most intuitive way possible. Trouble Witches NEO - Episode 1: Daughters of Amalgam, released last week on Xbox Live Arcade (XBLA) for $10 by Japanese developer Adventure Planning Service, is a typical Xbox 360...
The days of having to pay for video games are over. Generally, retail games are better because they're made with more effort and care than their free counterparts. But free browser-based game sites are insanely popular, specifically Kongregate, Armor Games, and the grandaddy of them all—NewGrounds. Despite not receiving funds directly from the players, they’ve become a profitable niche in the games industry. And that popularity has attracted more talent and money to the production of web game...
Real-time strategy (RTS) was the most popular genre in PC games at one time. It put Blizzard on the map—one of the biggest game developers in the world. And it buried the once venerable turn-based strategy genre, the only survivor being the Civilization series. But like hair metal in the late ‘80s, RTS reached its saturation point. Many bands (games) were too similar and used ornamentation over innovation. Suddenly, the fans left. From ’95 to ’03, Command & Conquer releases were more like new...
