Ambiguous Gaming

What would you do for a lifetime supply of games?

2009-02-16T16:37:00.000-08:00

Would you let someone name your child for a lifetime supply of games?
What if that lifetime supply was only one year's worth?
What if the video games were only from one developer?
What if that developer wasn't someone like Valve or Blizzard and instead more like.... Codemasters?

So basically, would you sell the cornerstone of your child's public identity for a few video games?

If you're still thinking "yes" after all those questions, please do not have children.

If you were planning on naming your child 'Jason' anyways, read on to redeem!

(thanks to my brother Matt for the tip!)
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Gaming News From Ambiguous Gaming

Why Megaton Will Never Fear Me

2008-11-23T10:02:00.000-08:00

A tiny community in downtown Washington D.C. is currently constructed around a live atomic bomb. Over time some of the citizens of this city dubbed 'Megaton' have formed the Church of Atom and worship the atomic bomb daily. So removing it is not really an option - besides, as long as no one activates it, it's not really doing anyone harm (apart from the radiation poisoning if you get too close, of course). If I were to stumble upon this town tomorrow, I certainly would not consider activating that bomb, no matter who tried to bribe or coerce me. You'd think it would take a near psychopath to destroy the lives and homes of that many innocent people, yet I know quite a few everyday, friendly people who have actually chosen to murder these poor saps.

I hope its obvious by now that I'm not describing a real world town (unless you think I hang out with some quite unsavory people), but the first town you will encounter in the post-nuclear-apocalypse world of Fallout 3. Providing meaningful moral choices that have a strong influence on your character, his/her interactions with others, and the game's storyline is the new big thing in RPGs and shooters. Bioshock offered different endings (all incredibly lackluster) based on your choice to save little sisters or destroy them to harvest larger amounts of the precious Adam. Fable 2 alters your character's appearance and interactions based on your choices. Fallout 3 is the latest game to utilize consequences for choices to make the player feel more invested in the world as they are able to actively mold it and shape it with their choices.

Megaton is awesomely constructed from the parts of a crashed airplane

Video games are often used as an escape from reality. You are forced to endure mistreatment from an incompetent boss all day, but at night you are that back-talking, shoot-first-ask-questions-later tough guy you wish you could be at work if it wouldn't get you fired in about 15 seconds. Even the most subservient goody-two-shoes will use games to flirt with senseless violence and savage insults.

Fallout 3 perk with a real life twist!

But even in the most abstract, nonexistant digital world, I can't bring myself to even say a rude comment to anyone! Many a time I've reloaded save games just because I chose a conversation topic I thought was friendly but upset them instead. I just can't over the fact that I want these piles of pixels to love me. I want them to have nothing but the best things to say about me, to greet me with a smile and a handshake when they bump into me in the streets and offer to buy me a drink at the local pub. And it's not just the rewards, something in me genuinely wants them to be happy. If they make a side comment about being a little bummed that they lost a book somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean, goshdarnit I'll dive for weeks to find that soggy pile of unreadable scraps just so long as it turns their digital frown upside down (and as a bonus they might even say "Hello, friend!" when I see them instead of the melancholy "Oh, hello there" I'd been getting from them up until then).

How many hours did I spend to make this guy happy? Doesn't matter, it was totally worth it!

Of course I don't think that the pearly gates would be off-limits to me if I had decided to detonate Megaton's bomb and I'm sure I wouldn't have trouble sleeping if I had accidentally offended a digital stranger by asking about her odd hairstyle. Further, I'm fully aware that I'm missing out on "half" the game be refusing to replay it through as an evil character, but every time I create Evil McStevilson with every intention of tossing my conscience out the window in order to shove soulless robots and distorted Ghouls into traffic on my way to obliterate Megaton I get stuck at the screen asking me if I really want to detonate that bomb. I just can't bring myself to click Yes.

So how about you? Do dastardly decisions in the game world weigh on your conscience at all or do you throw off that burden of moral responsibility at the door and placate your inner demons with digital destruction?
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Gaming News From Ambiguous Gaming

Wrath of the Lich King - 2 hours in

2008-11-13T10:47:00.000-08:00

I only played for two hours last night, but I really wanted to see the new content in Northrend so before Mister Sandman stopped by my room I hopped on my Gnome Rogue. I had made sure to camp Nereus right next to the loading dock for the boat headed to Borean Tundra on the South West coast of Northrend in preparation for the massive hordes of people swarming the docks and crashing the servers trying to reach the new zones.

But instead of being lost in a sea of names and characters, I found myself barely bumping elbows with the maybe 20 or so people waiting politely for the next boat. My ping was normal, my character responsive and when the boat went to Northrend, the server loaded quickly. The first thing I noticed was an iceberg we passed was covered in tiny little huggable penguins. I restrained the urge to dive overboard and reenact as much of the delightful movie Happy Feet that I could remember with these inanimate prop pieces. I was quickly rewarded for staying focused on the goal: 61! The town is thankfully filled with new architecture, after 4 years of almost exclusively building the exact same inn and keep everywhere they went, the Alliance has finally hired some fresh architects to shake things up a bit. The local inn sported a beautiful balcony overlooking the bay, a grand fireplace, and a totally new layout that had me bumping into walls because I'm so used to the old 'two sets of stairs to the three-bedroom upstairs' inn layout.

I was eager to try the new quests, but determined to read all the flavor text to get a feel for the 'mood' of Northrend and its inhabitants. I was very optimistic about the quests in the expansion after playing through the absolutely game-changing masterpieces in the Death Knight starting area in beta, where each quest is an adventure that bards will sing about for generations to come. But I have to admit that after playing through the first probably 15 quests in Borean Tundra on Alliance, I was disappointed. The quests were fairly uninspired "Go to X and kill 10 Y" Burning Crusade-quality quests. Now, Burning Crusade quests are excellent and at the time they were released raised the bar for MMO questing by a large margin, these quests are still enjoyable, laid out perfectly, and easy to complete. I just expected more after being teased with the revolutionary Death Knight quests. Some of the stories told by the quests and the quest givers are quite engaging and there's some fun animations with quest objectives. But the experience was dampened by being forced to auto-swim to an iceberg off the coast for a couple minutes each way back and forth 2 times for a quest chain. Again, I've only played for two hours, so maybe the quests get more ambitious soon but for now, the quests feel like more of the same.

Still, the fact that I could easily complete the quests (there was only one or two that were overcrowded to the point of fighting over mobs), is a remarkable achievement by Blizzard - I'm making a note here: huge success :) They spaced out the questing areas so that I saw only 3 Horde the entire time, there was no server lag, no disconnects. It felt more stable than average, to be honest, which is absolutely astonishing. Blizzard, you pulled off a perfect launch. I can't wait to get back in there and play some more :)
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Gaming News From Ambiguous Gaming

My Trip to the Lucas Arts Campus for the Star Wars MMO Announcement

2008-10-22T09:07:00.000-07:00

Things just keep getting better and better for me here at PC Gamer. Yesterday I got the chance to go to Lucas Arts' campus in San Francisco with the PCG team for the Star Wars: The Old Republic announcement. The campus is very impressive with a lot of plant life and open space. We were greeted by valet parking who directed us towards one of the nearby buildings. As we neared the building I felt myself growing steadily wiser with every step; and then I saw the source of my wisdom - nay, the source of all wisdom - Yoda, perched on the top of a pillar in the center of a fountain in the entryway. Awesome. Inside the lobby area were journalists from a lot of the major gaming publications and websites, including a significant amount who had crossed the Atlantic for the big announcement. Some were admiring the row of awards in the trophy case, others were posing with the life-size Boba Fett or Darth Vader (who conveniently has his hands positioned for you to take a picture of him choking you), and still others were sipping coffee purchased at the Starbucks located nearby on the campus.

I had the opportunity to meet quite a few people at the event including the Lucas Arts publicist in charge of the event and writers from various websites I've been reading for years. We were then ushered into a theater where we were addressed by the President of Lucas Arts, the co-founders of Bioware, the lead developer on the project, and the head artist on the project. Now everyone knew going into the announcement what they would be announcing due to loose lips letting the news slip a few weeks ago. They even jokingly referred to the game at one point as "the worst kep secret" in gaming.

They started by explaining their basic design philosophy for the game: Story, story story. They want everyone to be heroes - none of this boring cantina dancing and bantha herding business from Galaxies. Every character will have their own story they are developing as well as the ability to come together with other heroes to develop a story together. This is very similar to the structure of the movies, where Han, Leai, and Luke all have their own stories developing but they all come together to pursue more epic goals like chilling with ewoks and cutting up tauntauns.

The developers also emphasized a focus on 'companion characters' in the game. Again, this is not a new concept, companion characters are a staple in the Star Wars Universe. Uptight C3PO would never have any fun if it weren't for that rebellious free spirit of R2D2; and Jabba the Hutt needs Salacious Crumb to taunt his enemies with maniacal laughter.

The game is still pre-alpha and they were tight-lipped about even the most general idea of the release date, but the exclusive gameplay footage we saw in the theater (with an amazing sound system) looks promising. Lightsabers actually connect while dueling, the terrain and architecture was detailed, diverse, and engaging.

The game has massive potential, most of it riding on the hope that Bioware is allowed to spend the time and resources it needs to deliver on the promise of transferring their proven story-telling skills to the MMO space. I am skeptical that the game will be as revolutionary to the MMO genre as the developers claim (all of the MMOs claim that), but I do hope they bring more focus on story-driven gameplay to a genre that has been sorely missing it since its inception. It's an intimidating, if not impossible task, as my brother and I have slowly learned while working on our web-based mmo Galaxy Riot.

Best of luck, Bioware and Lucas Arts. If anyone can do bring solid story-telling to an MMO, it's you. We're eagerly awaiting more news on the newest addition to the rich Star Wars universe.

Update: Oh yeah, I also got some sweet swag at my first gaming press event - a poster; a disc with press releases, screenshots, and concept art; a sweet pack of 6 miniature action figures - with 3 Gungans (talk about bad luck)! But still REALLY awesome!
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Gaming News From Ambiguous Gaming

Friends, Gamers, Countrymen, Lend Me Your Ears!

2008-10-16T18:50:00.000-07:00

I know some of you like video games. I'm also fairly certain most of you like me (at least a little bit). So I'm sure that you've been wondering how to combine these two great passions of your life into one sweet hour of auditory bliss.

Well, wonder no more, friends! I'm pleased to present to you the perfect hybrid of entertainment and Josh (enterjoshment, if you will):

This week's PC Gamer Podcast STARRING JOSH AUGUSTINE (and some other guys)

If you really love me, you can subscribe to the PC Gamer podcast through iTunes or one of the other options listed at The PCG Podcast Page and enjoy the soothing sounds of my voice every Thursday - oh and get your weekly gaming news too!

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Gaming News From Ambiguous Gaming

HUGE patch for WoW!

2008-10-14T21:30:00.000-07:00

If you play World of Warcraft, you've been waiting for this day for months. It's almost as exciting a day as November 13 is going to be. This patch is Christmas come early as it provides all the awesome new content of the expansion apart from anything in Northrend and DKs. The cap is still at 70, but there's the new profession Inscription and glyphs available, all the new talents, barber shops, Stormind Harbor... Just too much awesome stuff to list!

Okay, I want to finish up here so I can go play, but let's talk Rogue Talent Builds. I don't care if some ArP build is the "most efficient" or something. When new talents come out, I want to max out a tree. I want to have a bunch of new toys instead of just polishing my old ones.

I'm a fan of Subtlety for Arena and PvP. And I think that Subtlety got the best new talents from 42-50, so I decided to try that out first. I'm VERY excited about a 30-energy Hemo, a SF that procs off any crit in my group (even heals), and a 5-min Prep. That is all just too good to be true. I almost didn't even grab th 51-pt talent, it's that terrible. But I figured I might as well, maybe I can find a way to make it useful, even if in niche situations.

Alright, enough jibber jabber, I'm going in! You should too! After you're done checking out all the new stuff, let me know what you think.

P.S. I'm VERY scared of frost mages now

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Gaming News From Ambiguous Gaming

Recap of Blizzcon for Important People Like Me (costumes)

2008-10-13T01:00:00.000-07:00

Good Looking Girl

Let's get this one over with first since you all won't be able to focus on anything else I show you a decent looking girl in a fantasy costume (sort of).

You all done looking at that and ready to move on to the more awkward ones? Good.

Lonely Guy Having the Time of His Life

This guy didn't have to scour the internet for hours to find the last picture. He finally wrangled himself a ticket to Blizzcon this year - the promised land flowing with milk, honey, and women dressed up like aliens who want to kiss you.

His life is now complete

Blizzcon is Serious Business... Guy

This hero probably shield bashed any alien seductress that dared to distract him with her feminine charms. He wanders the event floor alone, searching for evil to vanquish.

'Have at thee, foul temptress!'

Guy in the Wrong Place at the Wrong Time

This man was clearly confused about which convention it he was attending.

What do you mean "costume"? I dress like this every day.

The Awesome or Awful Lady

There's some costumes that no matter how long you stare at it, you just can't decide for sure whether it's genius or just plain awkward.

I'm leaning towards awkward.

Recap of Blizzcon for Important People Like Me (Class Panel)

2008-10-12T01:00:00.000-07:00

There's a lot of double talk and non-commital assurances made at these panels (kind of like a political debate), so let me cut through all the jargon and give you the truth on what Blizzard actually thinks about your class.

Deathknight

You are the golden child. If only other classes could be a bit more like you...

Druid

You should be able to function identical to any 'pure' Melee DPS, Spell DPS, Tank, or Healer class and have the ability to switch between them at any time with a respec.

Hunter

We think you're kind of stupid. Also, stop whining.

Mage

You're fine.

Paladin

You have been asking us to fix certain things for years now.
We might.

(Holy mobility, Prot MT viable, Ret luck+mana)

Priest

You will be further homogenized. Resistance is futile.

Rogue

We want to re-center the Rogue around poisons and daggers. Unfortunately we nerfed the poison and dagger talents into the ground a few beta patches back. Oops!

Shaman

Totems are stronger. Other than that, umm...did you see that we gave you new talents in the expansion? That should help, right?

Warlock

Shadowbolt is boring, pets are awesome, Affliction is tough.

Warrior

Protection might actually be fun for a change! Arms and Fury will no longer have distinct roles.

Source

Recap of Blizzcon for Important People Like Me (Q&A)

2008-10-11T17:03:00.000-07:00

If you're like me, you had a lot more important things to do this weekend than wade through all the news coming out of Blizzcon. Lucky for you, I'm a liar and I spent all weekend refreshing webpages with live blogging of Blizzcon so you didn't have to (no thanks necessary, but gifts appreciated). So here's what you should know from the Q&A Panel:

1. There is no need for PvP-mongers to abandon hope and migrate to WAR...yet. Like we all knew would happen, Blizzard will be implementing all the enticing features of WAR pvp (xp, low level gear rewards, siege weapons, attack-and-defend maps) into WoW in the expansion.

2. Strands of the Ancients is a new attack-and-defend map with siege weapons that makes terrain disadvantages irrelevant as each side attacks and defends one time each on the same map. This will unfortunately be another BG that Alliance will constantly lose unless Blizzard finds a different way to counter the Alliance's stupidity handicap.

3. New arenas will feature more interactive elements but none of them will be random.

4. You should be very scared about the next expansion after wotlk. They jokingly said it would take us to "Starcraft 2" and insisted that it is "unbelievable boldness". If that doesn't make you nervous that we might all end up in giant bouncy castles riding seahorses made out of popcorn, I don't know what will.

5. They think Hunters whine too much

6. The entire expansion is about dailies, but the dailies will contain more random elements similar to the existing cooking and fishing dailies.

7. Be a hybrid in the expansion. You'll benefit most from dual talent specs and spell power changes.

8. WoW movie is still in the works and (surprise, surprise) they think the script is awesome

9. A Developer who plays a mage uses Arcane Blast as his main attack and wants Arcane Mages to use it LESS in the future. Now that, my friends, is a dumb mage.

10. No-go on PvE Arenas.

11. If Arena balance is ruining the raiders' game, then the Chinese are ruining the panda's game. The awesome Pandaren have not and will not be included in WoW because of the Chinese "perception of the panda".

Source

I'm a Writer and I Use a PC

2008-09-24T22:04:00.000-07:00

If you haven't been following the Apple or Windows television ad campaigns, here's a quick summary to get you caught up:

- In 2006, Apple created a series of funny ads where an insecure businessman representing the PC community is consistently shown up by a casual dude representing the Mac community.

- Everyone loves this ad campaign, which is still continuing today

- Windows debuts it's rebuttal campaign ... in Q4 2008

Besides the obvious problem of it being two years late, the first campaign had some serious shortcomings. More specifically, it more closely resembled a SNL comedy sketch than a commercial. Sure it was kind of amusing, but it didn't sell me a PC. It just tried to convince me that Bill Gates is still cheap and not above getting his groove on, on national TV. Now don't get me wrong, this commercial is infinitely better than the infamous internal SP1 video leaked years back but it's just not the powerful rebuttal to Apple I was expecting.

Microsoft made some changes for the second commercial in the campaign. Instead of a comedy sketch, they gave us a sitcom. The same problem lingered, though - the part where the commercial tries to sell you its product was still missing.

Third try's the charm and Microsoft flip-flopped (it's a good thing here!) with it's latest commercial, abandoning humor entirely in order to repeatedly pound the viewer with the slogan "I'm a PC and I ________", insistenting that PCs live exciting lives doing just about everything except sitting in tiny cubicles. It's obvious they tried to turn the quote from the Apple ads in their favor, but it just looks silly having everyone say "I'm a PC" when they're trying to make the point that PC users aren't defined by their computer - they live varied, exciting lives. So why are they speaking in the same stereotyping language of the Apple commercials? It just sounds out of place without the abstract setting of the two individuals standing in front of the white backdrop in the Apple ads.

I don't know, maybe I'm too picky and should just be happy Microsoft understands the point of an advertisement now. But I still suspect Bill Gates made the first two commercials just to test the waters for a sitcom starring himself and Jerry. Thankfully, it doesn't look like any producers went for it ... yet.

Hammer vs. Craft

2008-09-24T20:15:00.000-07:00

The Great War is upon us. Which side will you choose? More importantly, which side will I choose?

First impressions coming soon as I continue to play through Warhammer Online with Brendon. Check Gamernode.com for his updates and a WoW vs. WAR comparison piece from me as well.

Why Electronic Arts is a Disgrace to PC Gaming

2008-09-18T23:59:00.000-07:00

People love to reminisce aloud about "the good ol' days" and complain how customer service today sucks because the teenage kid bussing a nearby table forgot to bring them the extra side of Ranch dressing they asked for. Normally these people bother me every time they start to rant about some miniscule oversight that they feel threatens their sense of self-worth. But every now and then I see something that makes me think they might be onto something.

The latest bringer of doubt to my comfortably self-righteous throne of judgement could be described as a ruthless, unforgiving despot. I'm talking about Electronic Arts of course. Now making fun of Electronic Arts is a favorite past time of mine, it's right up there with rambling about Ron Paul and eating cereal. Just this past week I was talking with my brother about how lazy EA has become with the Madden franchise. With no real competition, all they have to do is update the graphics a bit, import a new roster, and slam another curse on whichever player is stupid enough to pose for the cover picture.

But I was willing to swallow my pride and lovingly embrace the latest EA release, Spore, because it looked so novel, so fluffy, and just so much darn fun. So imagine the flurry of mixed emotions that came over me when I heard about the DRM used to protect the game from "piracy" (piracy here meaning anyone who actually wants to play the game they paid for a couple years after they bought it). If you don't know the back story on this issue, defintiely check out my brother's post on his Option 9 blog, it summarizes it very well: DRM Backlash...

Now that we're all on the same page (you did come back to finish reading my post after you got caught up on Matt's, right?), let's talk about the most recent development. More specificially, the fact that EA is not only heartless business men but also blatant liars. Techdirt released a story last Friday that showed further restrictions are placed on the consumer's use of a purchased version of Spore that are directly contradictory to what the buyer is told in the Spore game manual. Read their article here

You'd think after the outrageous backlash against the DRM on Spore from consumers that Electronic Arts would be at least a little bit anxious of the player loyalty or PR consequences would be. But apparently not. Showing complete disdain for customers who feel betrayed by the game pusblisher for treating paying customers like thieving criminals, EA spits in their faces by taking away even more ability for them to enjoy their game. I won't even talk about how outrageous it is to force you to buy a separate copy of the game for each of your children that want to play at some time. I won't even talk about how this doesn't help stop piracy at all (in fact recent news has indicated it fueled piracy. Source: Gamernode).

Instead, I'll talk about how much of a jerk this makes EA look like. Imagine that a kid sells his friend a pet frog. After buying it, the friend realizes that the seller is still holding onto the frog's leash. When the friend asks for the leash so he can enjoy his new pet frog, the seller insists that his friend only bought the frog, not the leash. So the friend suggests he take the frog off the leash, but the seller gets so upset that his friend would even ask such a thing that he glues the frog to the ground.

Yeah, that metaphor was kind of long and really not worthwhile. Why didn't I just erase it when I realized how ineffectual it was? Because I took the time to write it, so you should take the time to read it. That's not fair? Life's not fair. That's not fun? It beats having EA screw you over for being a good customer and paying for a game instead of pirating a copy without all the artificial limitations EA's DRM brings.

So that's the why EA is a disgrace to PC gaming. It took some da

ys of soul-searching but I finally realized that I'm happy about EA's most recent blunder. Sure, I'll never play Spore, but it feels so good to have my unwavering distaste for Electronic Arts justified so soundly.

University: Harborage of Knowledge

2008-09-08T08:58:00.000-07:00

New wisdom was imparted to me on campus today: the government invented American Idol to distract us all from the Iraq War!

Also, myspace is the downfall of civilization.

Back to the Kiddy Table, Gamers!

2007-12-18T00:07:00.000-08:00

Why aren't video games respected as an industry by mainstream media and the average person? Because we insist on acting like complete idiots any time we're invited to the adult table. Spike TV's recent Video Game Awards is a perfect example.

If watching Seth try to fit in at the college party in Superbad made you uncomfortable, you wouldn't be able to watch the VGA for more than a few minutes. In fact, I turned it off after about 2 minutes the first time I stumbled upon the show during late night channel surfing. In those two minutes I saw a bored Samuel L. Jackson spewing ad-libbed lines about his own sexiness (because I certainly hope nobody actually gets paid to write that crap) and a dirty looking thirty-something telling an intro joke. Now don't get me wrong, I love jokes. But I usually prefer them to be funny, or at least mildly entertaining. This guy managed to cram every cliche about gamers into a single joke that revolved around smoking pot, playing video games late into the night, and masturbating. Now someone like Seinfeld might be able to pull that joke off and make it pretty funny, but video game developers aren't usually known for their charisma and social skills.

I struggled through an hour more of the VGA tonight because I wanted to give it a second chance. I wanted to believe that I just caught it at a bad time. No such luck. Other memorable moments of the evening included Matt Leinhart looking bored and passing off the award like he was playing hot potato when he was obviously forced to walk up on stage to accept the "Best Team Sports Game of the Year" for Madden 2008. And who could forget the new Iron Giant game trailer premiered at the show? Well, legendary Stan Lee who introduced it forgot the name of the game and sounded more bitter than embarrassed before quickly fleeing the stage. And the blonde girl who was co-accepting the awards for Hamronix (Rockband) was so obviously trashed I was embarrassed for her. While her partner tried to maintain composure and thank the development team, she was acting like the drunk cheerleader at a high school party - falling off to the side laughing and waving at people off camera.

The video games industry will never be respected by outside media as long as we're so obivously uncomfortable with our own identity. The entire VGA show was obsessed with trying to prove that video games can be cool by mainstream (read: junior high student watching MTV "cool") standards. It would have taken a steadfast male chauvinist pig to have not been embarrassed by the treatment of women on the stage as the show maintained it's "awkward horny adolescent" perspetive on the world. For example, all of the award winners were revealed by having a naked woman covered in body paint turn around with the game title painted on their fronts. Female celebrities were only referred to by the other hosts as "having a hot ass, am I right?" or "she'll be in all of our dreams tonight"! Everyone went out of their way to use swear words (just like a band's sophomore album, it will prove the maturity of the industry right?) and fit video games into absolutely every sentence or prop used the entire night, often at the expense of being entertaining.

We don't have to squeeze video games into every single second of our awards show. The celebrity introductions at the Oscars aren't constantly making cliche jokes about the movie industry and film majors, are they? We need to be comfortable enough with ourselves that we can honor the captains of our industry without overcompensating and sacrificing the entertainment of the show for outsiders. I just don't think that a techno-circus filled with bored celebrities and no-name gaming personalities telling lame jokes demands the respect of the public.

To be fair, the show did have its high points. Foo Fighters and Kid Rock offered some legitimate entertainment in between awards and a video poking fun at some people's insistence of a link between violence and video games showed famous murderers like Stalin and John Wilkes Booth playing video games. Yep, that's about it for high points in the show. At first, it's great to see celebrities like Matt Leinhart accepting awards with the game developers, but when they look so obviously bored with the whole thing, its easy to see that it does more harm than good.

Thank Goodness it Wasn't Resisted!

2007-12-17T21:12:00.000-08:00

By now we've all heard about how World of Warcraft has destroyed countless social lives since its 2004 debut, but you won't see Hillary Clinton talking on the evening news about how it saved two lives this past week.

Two young Swedish siblings were walking in a forest near their home when they accidentally wandered into the aggro radius of a patrolling moose. Luckily, Hans Jørgen Olsen had learned a thing or two from playing a Hunter in World of Warcraft. He quickly sprang into action, taunting the moose off of his little sister by shouting at it. After he had the moose's attention, the twelve-year-old feigned death "just like you learn at level 30 in World of Warcraft." The tactic was successful as the moose wandered off - presumably in search of less video game-savvy victims (might I reccomend Jack Thompson?)

While it's obvious that the moose isn't the brightest of God's good creatures, I think we're all happy that young Hans doesn't play a Mage in World of Warcraft. I'm not sure his attempts to polymorph the moose into an amicable sheep would have been as successful.

Ble angrepet av elg [Nettavisen via Wired Blogs]