At the recent Develop conference, Double Fine founder Tim Schafer had some scathing words for Activision CEO Bobby Kotick. As many of you know, Brutal Legend was stuck in limbo for a ridiculous period of time, partially due to Kotick not believing in the franchise’s sequel potential. Crave quoted Schafer as saying:
His obligation is to his shareholders. Well, he doesn’t have to be as much of a dick about it, does he? I think there is a way he can do it without being a total prick. It seems like it would be possible. It’s not something he’s interested in.
Hopefully he’ll go back to another industry scene. He could go to an industry that makes more money. Ball bearings… something that suits his passions more. Weapons manufacturing?
That’s just funny, funny stuff…and part of the reason it’s funny is because it’s true. Crave has more quotes from Super Tim and I highly recommend checking them out. Wait a minute…that guy owes me an interview. Maybe I’ll head to San Francisco soon.
One of the disadvantages of being Ted (as mentioned in Coffee Talk #173) is that he doesn’t get to see many game endings. While not all games have huge payoff endings, some are so good that they make all the annoyances of a game dissolve as you’re enveloped by a wave of climactic bliss. Look at the clip of Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII, for example. The end is emotionally charged and cleverly uses a gameplay mechanic as a storytelling device. It’s just brilliant, brilliant stuff.
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, the chances of Snooki hooking up with John McCain, if Bud Selig should move the all-star game away from Arizona, or the ridiculous contracts going to above average NBA players, Coffee Talk is the place to do it.
One of the disadvantages of being Ted (as mentioned in Coffee Talk #173) is that he doesn’t get to see many game endings. While not all games have huge payoff endings, some are so good that they make all the annoyances of a game dissolve as you’re enveloped by a wave of climactic bliss. Look at the clip of Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII, for example. The end is emotionally charged and cleverly uses a gameplay mechanic as a storytelling device. It’s just brilliant, brilliant stuff.
What are some of your favorite game endings? Why did they move you? The comments in today’s Coffee Talk could be a good way to encourage each other to beat games that we haven’t finished. Maybe we just need to see the light at the end of the tunnel, the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, or the slinky girl wrapped in satin sheets on a water bed. Kindly share some of your favorite game endings today!
That battle between two of the best Google Android phones available this summer continues! This time around I’ll be comparing the HTC Evo 4G (Sprint) and the Motorola Droid X (Verizon) in terms of call clarity, user interface, form factor and display quality. These are two great phones with different advantages. Which one has the edge in the categories I mentioned above? Read on to find out!
Call Clarity
The Evo 4G works very well as a phone. After using it for about two months, I’m very satisfied with its call quality. The Droid X is simply in a different league. Motorola made a big deal about the phone’s call quality when it was announced and it was right to play up that aspect of the phone. The Droid X’s two noise-canceling microphones are brilliant for making and receiving calls in crowded places like a mall or in an area with heavy traffic. I made a few calls at the congested intersection of Wilshire and Vermont with dozens of cars and buses zipping by. The friends I called had no idea I was calling from such a busy street.
Remember, call quality greatly depends on how well your area is wired. Both Sprint and Verizon cover Los Angeles well, so it came down to hardware for me. In terms of call quality, the Evo 4G is good but the Droid X is great.
User Interface
Both phones use customized versions of Google Android 2.1 (Eclair). Motorola decided to go with a fairly basic modification, instead of the heavy handed Motorola Blur. While I prefer the Droid X’s UI over Blur, it still feels a little clunky. Sure, it does a few things better than stock Android, but it’s not nearly as polished and elegant as HTC Sense.
The Evo 4G simply has a smoother interface, better widgets, and better web browser customizations. It adds a bunch of little touches that add up for a superior Android exprience. HTC Sense is just a much better Android customization than anything Motorola has served up.
Form Factor
Both phones feature 4.3-inch screens, so they’re pretty close in terms of size. However, their displays feature different resolutions, resulting in slightly different form factors. Looking at both phones in portrait mode, the Droid X is taller and the Evo 4G is wider. The Droid X is also thinner. Being narrower and thinner makes the Droid X slightly more pocketable and a bit more functional for portrait viewing than the Evo 4G.
The Evo 4G feels better and is more functional in landscape mode. Whether it’s reading web pages or viewing videos, I feel that the Evo 4G uses its screen real estate more efficiently. The differences in form factors are a purely personal preference. Some people will favor one over the other, while others will not notice much of a difference. In my opinion, both phones have different advantages in terms of feel, so I’m calling this one a tie.
Screen Quality
Part of this I went over already in the last section. In terms of usability, I prefer the Droid X’s 854 x 480 screen in portrait mode. I prefer the Evo 4G’s 800 x 480 screen in landscape mode. Again, those are personal preference and I understand that other people will have different preferences.
What’s inarguable is that the Droid X’s screen is capable of more colors, has a better contrast ratio, and is brighter than the Evo 4G’s. Some people are fine with the Evo 4G’s 16-bit screen, but the gorgeous display on the Droid X is a noticeable step up. Motorola’s phone wins this round.
There are more Droid vs. Evo battles to follow! Check back to see how these phone compare in terms of their virtual keyboards, cameras, battery life, and more! As always, if you have any questions, please leave them in the comments section.
Days after Bob Sheppard, the voice of the New York Yankees, passed away, longtime Yankees owner George Steinbrenner has died of a heart attack. He was 80-years old. The most famous and controversial sports owner in America, Steinbrenner changed the way sports franchises operated and viewed free agency. He paved the way for sports teams to have their own networks and spread their brands on a global level. While he had numerous clashes with Major League Baseball, numerous players, and countless competitors in his decades-long run as Yankees owner, the one things he was always about was winning.
Above is a video of one of my favorite Yankees, Paul O’Neill, talking about the late George Steinbrenner.
My friend sent me an article by PhilStar to poke fun at my people’s love of the Roman Catholic Church. A Filipino priest has developed a game that doubles at a catechism tool. So yeah, my people are using videogames to teach people about Catholicism. Here’s the deal:
The three-dimensional game called “Paolo’s Journey,” developed by Fr. Maximo Villanueva Jr. of the Diocese of Balanga, Bataan, is based on Pope Benedict XVI’s “Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.”
Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Socrates Villegas, who chairs the CBCP-Episcopal Commission on Catechesis and Catholic Education, said the Church needs to conduct a “new evangelization,” not for faith propagation, but to remind the faithful of the social teachings of the Church. The target gamers are Grade 3 pupils to college students.
I’m sure this will be followed up by a platformer starring St. Christopher or a first-person shooter where Pope Benedict annihilates demons with holy water. The possibilities are tremendous! If you’re not afraid of going to hell, kindly share your ideas for a Roman Catholic videogame.
Yesterday I decided not to write about Consumer Reports rescinding its recommendation on the iPhone 4 due to its reception issues. The story has been played out. Most tech enthusiasts have already made up their minds about the issue — they either believe it’s a problem or they don’t. What I did find interesting is that Apple has allegedly been killing of discussions about Consumer Reports’ findings in its forums. According to TUAW:
If you were looking for a message thread on Apple’s support forums pointing to Consumer Reports’ article ‘not recommending’ the iPhone 4, it’s not there any more. Apple’s support forum moderators deleted the thread. Bing cached it.
If it happened once, maybe you’d say it was a glitch. But what if it happened twice? Three times? Four times, five, six?
The approach is unusual. I’m surprised that Apple didn’t have a bunch of rapid responses at the ready. Deleting forum threads make it look like it’s trying to sweep the issue under the rug or ignore its existence.
Watching Apple deal with this issue is simply fascinating. First it was “you’re holding it wrong” then it was a “software issue” about the bars improperly reporting signal. Any guesses on what the next response will be?
With LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, and Chris Bosh creating the “big three” with the Miami Heat, people are coming up with all sorts of killer combos. Whether you’re talking about triumvirates in sports, television, or adult films, it’s fun to dream up “big three” combinations. Let’s do the same for videogame development! Who would be your videogame dream team?
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, Intelligentsia’s Finca San Jose Nicaragua, Mel Gibson’s anger, or the RAW mystery GM, Coffee Talk is the place to do it.
With LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, and Chris Bosh creating the “big three” with the Miami Heat, people are coming up with all sorts of killer combos. Whether you’re talking about triumvirates in sports, television, or adult films, it’s fun to dream up “big three” combinations. Let’s do the same for videogame development! Who would be your videogame dream team?
Perhaps a combination of Square Enix’s art direction, BioWare’s storytelling, and Epic’s gameplay would work for you. Maybe you’d love Cliff Bleszinski, Hideo Kojima, and Tomonobu Itagaki to collaborate on a videogame. The possibilities are endless! So let’s play this game. Come up with a combination of three developers — companies or individual designers — that would make your dream team.
Ready for more details and opinions of the Motorola Droid X for Verizon? Of course you are! In the first part of my review, I covered this Google Android phone’s build, user interface, storage options, and call quality. This time around I’m covering its screen, keyboard, WiFi hotspot functionality, and software. Let’s get to it!
Screen
The Droid X features an ample 4.3-inch TFT LCD screen with a resolution of 854×480. The colors are bright and vivid. Text looks very clear. TFT LCD doesn’t have the color saturation of OLED — which some people love and some people hate — but it offers true colors and a screen that’s much more usable in daylight. While this screen isn’t as technically impressive as the iPhone 4’s “Retina Display”, the size makes it more usable on a few levels.
Having a large screen is fantastic for web browsing. You simply see more of the web page. It also helps with the virtual keyboard. Having more space makes typing easier for most people. For example, I can type faster and with less errors on the Droid X than the HTC Google Nexus One, which has a 3.7-inch screen.
The Droid X’s resolution is atypical, which is good and bad. In portrait mode, it’s taller and narrower than the comparable HTC Evo 4G. This is great for looking at web pages in portrait mode and more comfortable when holding the phone for calls. It’s not as great using it in landscape mode, but it’s not a huge problem either; it just feels like there’s a lot of wasted space when watching videos and web browsing.
Most people will love this screen. It’s big and beautiful…like Oprah.
Keyboard and Input
There are a few keyboard options on the Droid X. Most people will opt for the virtual keyboard. This phone has one of the best virtual keyboards I’ve ever used, mostly due to the screen size and partially due to the efficient layout. If you like haptic feedback while typing, the Droid X offers some strong vibrations.
The phone also has Swype pre-installed. This nifty program allows you to trace words as the CPU figures out what you want to spell. Check out the video above for an example. It’s a great system that some people rave about, but it definitely requires a learning period. With practice, I’ve seen people enter text faster on Swype than with a physical keyboard. It’s not my cup of tea, but I totally get the appeal and it’s great that it comes pre-loaded on the Droid X.
WiFi Hotspot
Verizon charges $20 a month for tethering and WiFi hotspot functionality, with a 2GB cap. This is cheaper but more restrictive than Sprint’s comparable offering (though it doesn’t have 4G speeds). Setting up a WiFi hotspot is a snap; if you know how to adjust settings on a router than you can set up a hotspot with ease. However, your speeds will vary by location. For example, I was barely able to crack .5MB down in my apartment, but easily hit 1MB in downtown Los Angeles.
The WiFi hotspot feature is a nice option to have, but completely unnecessary if you can get by with a wired connection on one device. There are a number of third-party programs like EasyTether and PDAnet that allow you tether without subscribing to an expensive plan.
Apps, Games, and Goodies
My thoughts on Android apps and games haven’t changed since I covered it in my Evo 4G review. Since new people might be reading this, I’ll give a brief overview. In terms of apps, the Android Market should have most of your needs covered. There are a wide variety of apps for all sorts of entertainment and productivity needs. In terms of function, the Android Market has almost everything the iPhone App Store has, but the selection isn’t as broad.
That said, there are two apps that are headed to Android but are testing my patience with their annoying wait times — TweetDeck and Skype (real Skype, not the BS Skype pre-loaded on the phone). For now I’m content with twicca, WordPress, Barcode Scanner, Foursquare, AIM, Facebook, Yelp, Pandora, Amazon, 3banana, GameFly GameCenter, Engadget, IMDb, Huffington Post, Amazon Kindle, Qik, and Speed Test on the Droid X.
Naturally, Google apps are best on Android than any other platform. Google Maps — with the free and excellent GPS Google Navigation, Google Voice, Google Goggles, Google Earth, etc., are brilliant on Android.
That’s it for part two of my Droid X review. As always, fire away any questions and I’ll try my best to answer them. Stay tuned for comments on the phone’s still image and video capabilities, complete with samples!
According to Kotaku, 40 past and present Infinity Ward employees have filed suit against Activision for a slew of reasons, including turning the work environment into a “police state”. Here’s my favorite passage from the article:
The suit says that had Activision not fired West and Zampella, withheld the bonus, created a hostile work place, not created a “police state-like atmosphere” they would have stayed on with the publisher.
I’m sure things were bad at Infinity Ward, but calling it a police state is ridiculous. Do these guys and gals know what it’s like to live in North Korea? I’ve avoided writing about the Activision/Infinity Ward issue because I really don’t think it’s that interesting and the enthusiast press has presented an overblown description of the situation. The “police state” line cracked me up though. No matter how bad it was, I’m positive it was nothing like living in communist Cuba.
What do you think of the situation? Do you think it was police-state bad? Do you care? Do you want more stories on this? Or can I happily ignore it?
