Today I’d like to talk to you about Halloween candy. What candy did you love getting in your trick-or-treat bag? What candy did you loathe? Is there a particular candy bar that left you with a feeling of “meh”? Let’s review and analyze Halloween…
Welcome to Coffee Talk! Let’s start off the day by discussing whatever is on your (nerd chic) mind. Every morning I’ll kick off a discussion and I’m counting on you to participate in it. If you’re not feelin’ my topic, feel free to start a chat with your fellow readers and see where it takes you. Whether you’re talking about videogames, Verve’s Ethiopia Biloya, Jennifer Aniston’s wrinkly hands, or posthumous albums, Coffee Talk is the place to do it.
Today I’d like to talk to you about Halloween candy. What candy did you love getting in your trick-or-treat bag? What candy did you loathe? Is there a particular candy bar that left you with a feeling of “meh”? Let’s review and analyze Halloween candy together!
Treat: I loved getting 100 Grand candy bars. The combination of chocolate and caramel is a timeless classic. I’m pretty sure the rice appealed to me because I’m Asian. The name makes it sound like a luxury. Hmmm, I might have to get one for breakfast….
Trick: Necco Wafers are, by far, the worst candy in the world…unless you’re fond of Tums and chalk. Every time I saw this dreaded candy being thrown in my bag I thought, “Screw you lady!” At best, Necco Wafers are useful for when you run out of poker chips. At worst, they’re Necco Wafers.
Meh: I never understood the popularity of Three Musketeers candy bars. They’re not bad at all, but they’re not particularly good. The whipped filling and lack of density gives it a rather unsatisfying feeling. Despite the swashbuckling name, they’re just fluffy and boring. I didn’t mind getting Three Musketeers during trick-or-treat runs, but I wasn’t thrilled to get get them either.
Now it’s your turn! Kindly share your favorite, least favorite, and meh Halloween candies.
The Washington Post has a great interview with Irrational Games creative director and co-founder Ken Levine. Similarities between BioShock Infinite and the Occupy Wall Street movement are discussed. I highly recommend giving it a full read; it’s a fantastic interview with one of the sharpest minds in game development…
The Washington Post has a great interview with Irrational Games creative director and co-founder Ken Levine. Similarities between BioShock Infinite and the Occupy Wall Street movement are discussed. I highly recommend giving it a full read; it’s a fantastic interview with one of the sharpest minds in game development.
One curious aside in the interview is Levine talking about BioShock Infinite getting heat from leftists and white supremacists alike. Check it out:
The games tend to be a Rorschach for people, and I’ve heard both sides of reaction [to the demo]. I had the displeasure of going to a white supremacist site that made a point of saying this game by “the Jew” Ken Levine was about killing white people. But then I went to this leftist site that said this is about discrediting leftists movements. Games, as I said, are a Rorschach, and I don’t want to be making games that are expressing a political or philosophical view.
For some reason, in my head I hear a white supremacist calling him “the Jew Ken Levine” similar to how South Park’s Eric Cartman says “that damn Jew Kyle”. Though perhaps that’s just me….
Anyway, head on over to The Washington Post, enjoy the interview, and let me know what you think (please).
Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventures continues to be fun for me. In my head, I know that all the characters are already in the game, but it’s fun imagining that you’re bringing action figures to life through the game’s Portal of Power (which for some reason reminds me of WWE’s Nation of Domination). I definitely want to give The ICO and Shadow of the Colossus more time…well, the first half anyway. I really liked Shadow, but I loved ICO. Lastly, I think I’ll give X-Men: Destiny a whirl. I know that the game got bad reviews, but I’m a fan of Silicon Knights and want to check out the company’s work.
This is probably the most important question you’ll be asked in October. What’s the bigger news story — Lindsay Lohan posing for Playboy or McDonald’s bringing back the McRib? Kindly vote in today’s poll and discuss in the comments section!
This is probably the most important question you’ll be asked in October. What’s the bigger news story — Lindsay Lohan posing for Playboy or McDonald’s bringing back the McRib? Kindly vote in today’s poll and discuss in the comments section!
Epic Games president Mike “Busta” Capps is wise, handsome, and charming. In a recent interview with Develop, he proposed the idea of game developers setting their own prices for games and downloadable content. Capps said…
Welcome to Coffee Talk! Let’s start off the day by discussing whatever is on your (nerd chic) mind. Every morning I’ll kick off a discussion and I’m counting on you to participate in it. If you’re not feelin’ my topic, feel free to start a chat with your fellow readers and see where it takes you. Whether you’re talking about videogames, Steve Jobs creating the iPad out of spite, Lindsay Lohan in Playboy, or your favorite streaming television app, Coffee Talk is the place to do it.
Epic Games president Mike “Busta” Capps is wise, handsome, and charming. In a recent interview with Develop, he proposed the idea of game developers setting their own prices for games and downloadable content. Capps said, “Right now we’re not even allowed to change the prices of virtual content. We’re not even allowed to set the prices. I just don’t think this protectionist approach is going to be successful in a world where the price of virtual items changes on a day-to-day basis. Double-A games will never come back unless we get rid of this notion of a game being $60 or not released. The console manufacturers need to let this happen.”
It’s an excellent idea that could be fantastic…or terrible. Certainly it’s ridiculous that some crap motion game has the same price as Gears of War 3. One argument is that price should reflect a game’s budget and/or quality. The counter to that argument is the movie business. A ticket to a small-budget indie-film costs the same as one to a mega-million Michael Bay monstrosity.
Then there’s the fact that some developers would find a way to screw up game pricing. Certainly larger companies with a lot of experience or smaller companies with savvy executives would find a way to get the most out of flexible game pricing. However, I expect there would be just as many cases of developers setting unreasonable or unrealistic prices because they’re too attached to their creations. Gaming is still a relatively young business and I think that its immaturity would show up if developers could price their on wares. Publishers are often viewed (sometimes unfairly) as an evil force in the gaming business, but the suits have their uses.
What do you think of Capps’ idea? Can you envision a world where game developers price their own software? Would you prefer flexible game pricing over a rigid system? What benefits and perils do you see with having developers price their own games?
It’s a thrilling week for Verizon and its customers — the pre-order page for the Droid RAZR and a signup page for info on the Galaxy Nexus are live! In case you need a refresher, the Droid RAZR is a Motorola phone that features steel-and-kevlar construction, a 4.3-inch qHD Super AMOLED screen, and Android 2.3.5. The Galaxy Nexus by Samsung is Google’s latest flagship phone. It features a 4.65-inch HD Super AMOLED screen (720p!), a zero-shutter-lag camera, and Android 4.0. Both phones run on Verizon’s mercurial LTE network.
Verizon’s Android lineup is the best in America. Its LTE network in unbeatable in terms of speed and reach (for 4G). With the problems I’ve been having with T-Mobile for the last two months, I’m seriously considering switching one of my mobile accounts over to Verizon and picking up one of these phones (guess which one).
How about you? Any of you considering the Droid RAZR or Galaxy Nexus on Verizon?
Nintendo has announced that it expects to lose 20-billion yen (a shade under $264-million) for its fiscal year ending March 2012. Software sales are down, hardware sales are down, and the Japanese yen continues to be one of the strongest currencies in the world, which is bad news for a company that’s dependent on exports and global sales. This will be the first lost since the company started releasing its financial results in 1981.
In some positive news, worldwide sales of the Nintendo 3DS portable console have hit 6.68-million units. Considering its rough start and the fact that many pundits called it a “doomed” system, the sales are impressive. Like I’ve said in the past, I expect 3DS sales to be strong in the long run.
The exchange rate issues will continue to plague Nintendo for some time to come. There’s not much the company can do to counter that factor…outside of relocating the entire company to China and Mexico. Hmmmmm…I’m going to put a pitch together. I think I can convince at least 40 percent of Nintendo of Japan that Cabo San Lucas is where they want to be.
Here’s a lengthy clip of the upcoming Final Fantasy Type-0 for PlayStation Portable. Some of you will remember the game as Final Fantasy Agito XIII. I’m super looking forward to Type-0 for its battle system (purported to be similar to the one in Crisis Core: FFVII) and music by Takeharu Ishimoto.
I was a little disturbed by the bloody chocobo. They’re such cute animals and it saddened me to see one injured…but then it made me think of a band name. My Bloody Chocobo will be the name of my next band!
Anyway, check out the clip and let me know what you think (please!).
Here’s a great clip from The Daily Show that features Walter Isaacson talking about his book, Steve Jobs. In addition to talking about the book and Jobs, jabs at Microsoft, Bill Gates, and the Zune are thrown. That’s always fun. The Daily Show is awesome. By most accounts, this book is awesome. Give it a look (please)!
At its Nokia World conference in London, Nokia took the wraps off the Lumia 800 and Lumia 710 — its first phones using the Windows Phone operating system. The Lumia 800 features several of the premium features found in the Nokia N9 — machined polycarbonate body, Carl Zeiss lens, 3.7-inch ClearBlack AMOLED display, etc. The Lumia 710 features some of the same internals as its sister phone, but cuts several corners in order to hit the budget market.
The stunningly social Nokia Lumia 800 features head-turning design, vivid colors (cyan, magenta and black) and the best social and Internet performance, with one-touch social network access, easy grouping of contacts, integrated communication threads and Internet Explorer 9. It features a 3.7 inch AMOLED ClearBlack curved display blending seamlessly into the reduced body design, and a 1.4 GHz processor with hardware acceleration and a graphics processor. The Nokia Lumia 800 contains an instant-share camera experience based on leading Carl Zeiss optics, HD video playback, 16GB of internal user memory and 25GB of free SkyDrive storage for storing images and music.
The purposely built, no-nonsense Nokia Lumia 710 can be personalized with exchangeable back covers and thousands of apps to bring the Lumia experience to more people around the world. The Nokia Lumia 710 is designed for instant social & image sharing, and the best browsing experience with IE9. It is available in black and white with black, white, cyan, fuchsia and yellow back covers. With the same 1.4 GHz processor, hardware acceleration and graphics processor as the Nokia Lumia 800, the Nokia Lumia 710 delivers high performance at an affordable price.
The good news for Windows Phone fans is that the operating system finally gets a phone with a premium design. The Lumia 800 is just stunning. Apple and Nokia are just so much better at industrial design than everyone else. The bad news for Americans is that the Lumia line won’t be available until 2012. The phones hit France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, and the UK in November 2011. This will be followed by launches in Hong Kong, India, Russia, Singapore, and Taiwan before the end of 2011.
Some tech enthusiasts were disappointed that Nokia didn’t include a more powerful chip for the Lumia 800, wishing for a dual-core processor from Nvidia, Samsung, or Texas Instruments. These people are misinformed (or stupid). The Windows Phone operating system isn’t able to take advantage of dual-core processors yet. When the software is updated, I’m sure Nokia will have models with updated processors. Additionally, Microsoft is retaining Qualcomm as the official processor supplier of Windows Phone in order to help avoid the numerous development issues found on Google Android (with its vast permutations of hardware configurations).
The Nokia 800 looks like a hot piece of hardware — easily the Windows Phone I’m most interested in. That said, the operating system isn’t for me. Windows Phone has several slick features, but my heavy use of Google products (multiple Gmail accounts, Google Voice, Google Docs, etc.) makes Android a better choice for work. While the Xbox Live features of Windows Phone are neat, iOS is still a much better choice for entertainment. Still…awesome Nokia hardware with a modern operating system is awfully tempting.
Any of you interested in these phones? Would any of you import a Nokia Lumia 800 for use in America?
