Category: Video Games

Here’s an interesting e-mail exchange between me and the Ubisoft folks in regards to their amazing new game, Splinter Cell, Chaos Theory… Customer (Jason Kasper) – 06/06/2005 01:04 PM Hi there.  I would very much like to buy Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, but I don’t want my children to have to listen to all of the swearing.  Is there a code or patch or preference that I can use to turn off the swearing or talking? Thank you! Response (GREG) – 06/06/2005 04:16 PM Jason, unfortunately there is no profanity filter in this game.  This is not a childrens game.  Even if you remove the language, you are still shooting people… LOL. I don’t know why I find this funny, Read more…

I’ve finally broken down and purchased an Xbox. Circuit City had it combined with the DVD playback kit ($30 value) for $149.99, which seemed to be a good enough deal to fork over the money. I must say… it is REALLY nice. Microsoft has done an exceptional job at building, marketing, and “convincing” game-makers to adopt the wee beastie. The UI of the machine is very well thought-out, intuitive, and smooth. I’ve ordered some PS2->Xbox converters from liksang.com so that I can use my custom-built arcade controllers with the xbox. I’ve purchased 3 games for the xbox thus far: splinter cell (the first one), the two towers, and capcom versus snk. And, I’ve had tons of fun with the xbox Read more…

Woot, baybee!! It was a good weekend, this. And, to top it off, I played halo for an hour and 20 minutes tonight, and I feel absolutely fine!! I played upstairs, in the dining room this time, and I think that’s what made the difference. It’s in the middle of an open room, with a couple of flickering candles around the room, and lots to keep my brain from getting confused, I think. But the coolest part is that I actually captured the flag a couple of times tonight!! =:) Came in second place even! =:) WOOT! I’m quite the newbie at this tho, so my “strategy” was limited to the smash-and-grab variety. It was quite the adrenaline rush, tho! Read more…

phew. it’s all about learning…. wow. this is the sickest I think I’ve felt yet. I probably pushed myself too hard tonight. I played for 2 solid hours this evening, much to the delight of my kiddos. my little bride was tired and shagged out and spent the evening relaxing/snoozing. =:) *hi honey!* =:) I played online for a good hour, I think. I placed last (like the newb that I am) in the 2 CTF (capture the flag) games that I was in. And I placed 5th out of 7 in every man for himself (what is the proper name for this one?). yay for the newb!!! =:) Erm, so anyway, now I feel quite ill. BUT… several things Read more…

and finally…. a post on slashdot that give me a slight glimmer of hope… You *can* train yourself out of this. The UK RAF does this for pilots over a matter of months: its worst for navigators because they do the reverse of what we’re speaking about: they look at a motionless screen while being subjected to motion. The USAF actually sends their vomiting pilots to the RAf to be debugged on this one… of course… everyone knows that you can believe everything you read on slashdot…. as for me, I tried setting our 2 cheapo old computers at home up to run Halo–just to see if maybe using a different computer/hardware/CRT would help, but the one is a P3-600 Read more…

Man, I’m excited about this…. I found this…. All I can say is… Josh, you’d better get yer game back, baybee…. =:) Ooooh. This looks soooo intense. If you’ve never played any of the Street Fighter games, well, you’ve probably wandered onto this page accidentally. The unquestioned king of fighting franchises is coming to the Xbox for the first time, and it’s going to be the first time the series has ever allowed players to do battle online. As the title suggest, there are a bunch of games on the disc, including the many flavors of SF2, as well as the wonderful SF3: Third Strike. Unfortunately, we don’t know much about the online play yet, as the game was recently Read more…

So, I found this bit of research today….. I’m finding plenty of pages that document that existence of simulator sickness, but haven’t yet found anything that talks about how to combat it. =:/ Still looking…. My newly-purchased Halo PC game just arrived in my mailbox today. I’d like to think that I’ve not just wasted $27. NECESSARY TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCES AND PRIMARY RESEARCH CHALLENGES Unfortunately, a phenomenon exists that may pose a threat to the ultimate usability of this new technology. That phenomenon is referred to as “simulator sickness” and it is a well-documented effect of simulator exposure (Reason and Brand, 1975; Kennedy and Frank, 1983; Kennedy et al., 1989; Casali, 1986). Simulator sickness is similar to motion sickness but can Read more…

Woot! So, I managed to last a half-hour with halo tonight! I think it might be because I was talking with my kiddos while I was playing it. Maybe that kept my stomach distracted…. But I got off the ship finally, went through several checkpoints, and got in my first vehicle!! =:) It was pretty funny. I walked up to the back of the vehicle, faithfully hit my “e” key as instructed to get up into the gunner’s position, and just kind of waited. And waited. And waited. And… well, finally hopped out and got into the driver’s seat. I probably did something stupid and shot my driver or something, but anyway, managed to get the vehicle moving. =:) Maybe Read more…