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The state of iPad gaming, or: Joshua plays FarmVille

Joshua Meadows — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 23:56:39 +0000

This past week I began looking through the iTunes sales charts and review websites to check in on what iPad games were popular and how well they ran on my device. The same staples of the iPhone are still in place on the iPad: tower defence games and turn-based strategy titles really excel on the iPad where pin-point precision and accuracy aren't needed for a great experience. What I found most surprising, however, was the level of depth on the iPad versions of titles. It has nothing to do with screen real estate, either: iPhone games give you a sense that you're really playing a short, mobile experience, while iPad games are generally much longer, more polished and have a far more epic "feel" to them.

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Boggling choices: Mass Dragon Age Effect 2?

Joshua Meadows — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 09:24:23 +0000

BioWare's Mass Effect franchise was one of the studio's more successful ventures, selling an ungodly number of copies for both the original game and its sequel across a number of systems. Stunningly, Dragon Age managed to outsell not just that franchise, but according to BioWare's Rob Bartel the game has apparently beaten sales records of all their other titles as well. That makes it all the more confusing as to why they've apparently decided to heavily emulate Mass Effect while creating Dragon Age 2, out next year.

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Rejecting science, HHS maintains 1985 gay blood ban

Joshua Meadows — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 16:17:19 +0000

Last week the HHS Advisory Committee on Blood Safety and Availability held a two-day talk to reconsider the 1985 ban on accepting donations of blood by men who have had sex with men since 1977. The US' ban has repeatedly been criticised by blood banks, medical experts and various associations as being based on no science but simply paranoia. Even though it's come up for reconsideration a few times, the ban has never been removed and sadly last week's attempt was no different. Despite soliciting opinions over the issue, the committee voted 9-6 to leave the ban in place, ignoring the advice from people who know what they are talking about who said such a ban was discriminatory and worthless.

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Open letter to Democratic National Committee chairman Tim Kaine

Joshua Meadows — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 05:02:24 +0000

Dear [DNC Chairman] Tim Kaine: My name is Joshua Meadows. I am writing you in response to an email I've seen circulated from yourself to the gay community soliciting their perspectives and opinions about this Pride Month. I would like to take this opportunity to share some things with you about myself as a gay American.

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Where Joshua buys an iPad

Joshua Meadows — Sat, 29 May 2010 17:56:48 +0000

On Friday, the magical and revolutionary iPad was finally released internationally, arriving "down under" at 8 AM. Like a couple hundred others, I stood in line outside the Apple Store to buy one. Given my previous thoughts and commentary on the device, such an announcement may seem surprising. And yes, I went into the purchase unsure as to whether or not I would be keeping it or returning it in a few days, thinking it would be simply something shiny that I'd get tired of in a short amount of time.

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Piracy is not killing PC gaming

Joshua Meadows — Sun, 23 May 2010 06:23:23 +0000

Last week, Yahoo!'s Plugged In site ran an interview with Epic Games' president Mike Capps detailing why his company has decided to leave the PC platform and switch focus to console games. Inevitably, his claim of rampant piracy has been picked up on a number of news sites and thrown up as validation that PC gaming is somehow "dying."

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Prima Guides arrive on Steam, but why?

Joshua Meadows — Fri, 21 May 2010 13:42:41 +0000

Steam announced yesterday that they had partnered up with Prima, long the purveyor of official "strategy guides" for games like Mass Effect 2 and Prince of Persia, to offer downloadable versions of their guides through Valve's platform. At first glance I liked this idea a lot, but after buying one of them it seemed like a waste of money.

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This article was originally posted on ctrlclick.com