Archive for June, 2008
Mrs Bigmouth’s seven-word DVD review: Cloverfield
Like watching someone else play a videogame.
Dialogue in games: won’t somebody think of the parents?
When you’re a parent, you don’t get a lot of time to play games. More often than not, your gaming time is the odd late-night session when everyone else is in bed - and because everyone’s in bed, you can’t stick headphones on because you won’t be able to hear the baby monitor.
That’s not a problem if you’re playing arcade games or dumb shooters, but it’s a pain in the neck with more immersive things. You need to hear the dialogue because if you don’t, you haven’t a clue what’s going on. However, you can’t turn the TV up loud enough to hear the dialogue because if you do, there’s bound to be a HUGE BLOODY NOISE that wakes the baby, brings your gaming session to an abrupt halt and ends up with you sleeping in the shed.
Last night, I attempted to play Alone In The Dark. It certainly looks good, but I gave up after about 20 minutes. There’s loads of speech in it (in the first 20 minutes, anyway), but because the speech is interspersed with HUGE BLOODY NOISES I couldn’t turn the TV up loud enough to hear it.
GTA IV has loads of speech and lots of HUGE BLOODY NOISE in it too, but it has - yes! - subtitles. It spoils the immersion a little bit - some of the dialogue is even more clunky/cliched/annoying when it’s on the screen rather than in your ears - but at least you can work out what’s happening without ending up in the shed.
I know subtitles aren’t a big priority for game developers, but given that the average gamer is in their thirties there’s a good chance that a lot of game buyers are in the same quiet boat as me - and of course, people with hearing difficulties play games too.
Make Amazon like a real bookshop
This is great: an interface for Amazon that attempts to recreate the bookshop browsing experience.
[Via MetaFilter]
Spam tries new ways to get your attention
Two message subjects this morning:
Britney found hanged in locker room
Obama withdraws from elections
Take me up the wheelie bin!
ONE of the most recent surveys to delve into the sex lives of Scots painted a portrait of a broadminded people accepting of preferences and practices which might differ from their own and willing to be adventurous in their own relationships.
The study found that 90 per cent of Scots said they were open and non-judgmental, with most engaging in sexual activity on average 29 times a month. Twenty-two per cent of people asked had had sex on a beach, while one respondent even admitted to having sex in a wheelie bin.
Ssssssssmokin!
I’ve got one of these for a work thing I’m doing soon. It’s the SuperSmoker!
If you haven’t already seen the video, it’s hilarious.
I’ll report back :)
The inflatable sauna. What do you mean, you haven’t got one?
A legendary video game… for all the wrong reasons
God, I really want to know the real story behind this one: new PC game Limbo of the Lost, which has been a bazillion years in development, is uncannily similar to pretty much every game ever made. And by similar I don’t mean “yeah yeah, this is just like Doom”. I mean “OMG that’s all been nicked!”
The ever-reliable Rock Paper Shotgun has a good overview and the gorgeous, pouting Richard Cobbett has an in-depth review.
Because being a single mum with an autistic child isn’t hard enough
Being misanthropic isn’t fun, you know, and from time to time I do my very best to change my attitude. I read inspiring news stories about inspiring people doing inspiring things. I read sad stories about the sacrifices people make for others. I try to see the best in people, and take the Vonnegut attitude that we’re all here to help each other through this thing, whatever it is.
And then I see a news story like this one, and I’m back to square one.
“The teacher looked and me and said: ‘We have to tell you something. The educational assistant who works with Victoria went to see a psychic last night, and the psychic asked the educational assistant at that particular time if she works with a little girl by the name of “V.” And she said ‘yes, I do.’ And she said, ‘well, you need to know that that child is being sexually abused by a man between the ages of 23 and 26.’”
There’s more to the story than the psychic angle - the child was exhibiting signs of sexualised behaviour, which apparently isn’t unusual in autistic kids - but it does seem as if the psychic’s “vision” triggered the whole thing.
[Link via Fark]
Firefox 3 due later today
