The Game Industry's Direction

I rewatched the first two Star Wars movies with my brother over the weekend and it somehow seems less horrible the second time through. They're decent, not great, films that mainly suffer from writing and acting issues. Some actors are awesome while others are just dreadful (like Hayden Christensen), but I think it's a promising story overall with stunning visual effects. Oh, and that was the worst way to tell a romance story ever. I'm glad I rewatched them because I forgot so much of what happened and now I can see Episode III at ease. Anyway, the Christian Science Monitor wrote an enlightened article about how the video game industry has been so focused on blockbuster titles and sequels to them. The reason for this is because games cost so much to make nowadays (even more in the next generation because of the extra effort and manpower needed) that studios have to see a return on their investments or they blew a considerable sum. Plus, it's hard for them to predict what new ideas their audiences will actually favor. What's clear is that online games are getting pretty big because of that sense of community, but hopefully they move in more innovative directions than that. We don't need more MMORPGs.

There's still some more nerd news to boot. This year is the birthday of the atomic clock and I can't imagine thinking of something so impacting. How do people come up with stuff that intelligent? If you decide to throw out your iPod make sure you give it back to Apple because they'll despose of it properly whereas putting it in the trashcan will ship the waste overseas. Plus, they give you a discount for a replacement iPod. In a scary turn of events, the DPRK (North Korea) apparently has a team of hackers that rival our CIA, which just shows our incompetence in intelligence gathering even more. Some good people have developed a robot that can copy itself and they plan to give it away to less advantaged countries to help them build up their indutstries. Robots building themselves sounds like something out of Star Wars. The last things I wanted to bring up were a couple of new monitors. The Perspecta 3-D monitor isn't quite ready for average consumers but it's a soccer-shaped monitor that can display objects in the 3 dimensions they were meant to be seen in! Of course for those of us living in today's world we have to settle for a heftily priced DoubleSight:



Not much movie news to talk about. Revenge of the Sith has been thrown off its box office throne into the #3 spot by Madagascar of all movies (closely followed by The Longest Yard). I think Cinderella Man fell so harshly due to a lack of publicity, but what do I know. IGN has an early review of High Tension, which was shown at Cannes, that makes the movie sound like an average thriller flick. I guess that makes it perfect for the summer. The last thing I have is just more reactions to Batman Begins suggesting that it's as awesome as we all have hoped. I haven't read a bad review of it yet. The little clip I mentioned Friday is online now by the way.

Before I end I wanted to plug this sad article reporting that job growth figures last month were suprisingly weak. Though trends are more important than individual months, things don't look good for the trend. I'll cede that it's not all Bush's fault that this is happening, but would it hurt him to do something about it? To brighten the mood though, check out this short quiz I got a 60% on.

Now for some Unconscious Mutterings:

I say ... and you think ... ?

1. Exhibit::The Vatican exhibit they had here a couple years ago
   
2. Evolution::Creationism (as in an antonym)
   
3. Loser::3 Doors Down (great song)
   
4. Hypnotic::The hypnotoad on Futurama
   
5. Unlikely::Me getting a girlfriend anytime soon (sorry, that was first)
   
6. Interrupt::Database request interruptions (yes, I know I'm sad)
   
7. Ambivalent::Fair
   
8. Rise and fall::The Roman Empire
   
9. Indian::Me!
   
10. Prophecy::The Matrix (it was on TBS all freakin weekend)