Guitar Rising - Real Guitar Hero

GuitarRising
by jakeparks

I never got the whole Guitar Hero, Rock Band and their fake guitars playing thingie, which require so much practice to master that you may as well use a real guitar to become as good as Satriani. That's why I love the idea of Guitar Rising, which can use any real electric guitar, from a Fender Telecaster to a Gibson Les Paul. The software teaches you how to play actual songs, tracking your accuracy much like Guitar Hero would do, as their demo video shows.

Rather than learn fake guitar, kids, play something that teaches you real guitar!

Homerball

Got one yesterday. Sweet. :-P

Cool New Game - Crysis

Crysis is a PC sci-fi action game from the award-winning developer Crytek, the developers of the critically acclaimed Far Cry, which attained a MetaCritic average of 90%.
Crysis offers players a highly immersive game experience in which they will have to adapt their tactics, weaponry, the Nanosuit and gameplay style to survive and defeat an alien invasion.

The Graphics are really impressive. More.

Wii Guns

Interesting, although in my [limited] Wii experience the remote attachments weren't better than using the remotes directly.
From here.

Line Rider - an Etch-a-Sketch for the Youtube Generation?

More.

Superstitions in Pigeons and MMOs

From beta all the way through months into launch players were CONVINCED that if you used the diplomacy skill on a chest it would improve the loot you got. This was SO widespread that you literally could not get in a pick up group without them querying about the diplomacy skills of the party and someone forcing everyone to wait while the highest diplomacy skill player cringed before the chest sufficiently. No matter how many times we posted on the forums that this was a myth and it doesn't do anything, they kept doing it. It got so bad our community relations manager even put it in his sig. Finally we made chests an invalid target for the diplomacy skill, then players whined that all the points they put into diplomacy were worthless because we "nerfed" the skill!

We've had similar problems with some of our boss encounters, for example, on my first dragon raid, I was regaled with a long list of things I MUST NOT DO or else the raid would be wiped. Not one of them was valid, but they were incredibly detailed and equally silly. (Things like you can't switch weapons, press hotkeys, cast spells, attack anything but a single leg of the dragon, that sort of thing). It was pointless to argue about, they wouldn't accept the fact that their rules were really all superstitions.

B.F. Skinner is well-known for his theory of behavioral conditioning, but one of his quirkiest studies involved inducing superstition in pigeons (1948). 8 pigeons were placed in a reinforcement contraption (i.e., Skinner Box) and were given a food pellet every 15 seconds no matter what they did. After several days, each pigeon had fixated on a particular superstitious behavior. One pigeon danced counter-clockwise, another two developed a left-to-right head-swinging motion, another attacked an invisible object in the top right corner of the cage, and so forth. This phenomenon has also been replicated among high-school students (Bruner & Revuski, 1961). And given that MMOs are a kind of Skinner Box that offer some random rewards (e.g., rare drops), it's not surprising that superstitious behaviors emerge in MMOs as well.

More.

Fight Like a Rabbi

In this graphical adventure game [The Shivah], Russell Stone works as a Jewish Rabbi at a poor synagogue in New York City. He is a devout man with a problem. Membership is way down and he lacks the funds to keep his synagogue open. Things are looking very bleak, and he has grown progressively more cynical and bitter with the passage of time.

Just as he is on the verge of packing it all in, he receives some interesting news. A former member of his congregation has died and left the Rabbi a significant amount of money.

A blessing? Or the start of something far more sinister? Can Rabbi Stone just accept the money and move on? His conscience says no. Step into his shoes as he travels all over Manhattan in his attempt to uncover the truth.

Features rabbinical conversation methods, a unique method of fighting, an original score, and three different endings!

More. Free demo available, or buy for $5.

Malevolent Nuzzle Engrish

Yu-Gi-Oh! playing cards have some of the most bizarre names I've ever seen, some highlights:

• Mystic Plasma Zone
• Magic Jammer
• Gazelle the King of Mythical Beasts
• Beaver Warrior
• Man-Eating Treasure Chest
• Pineapple Blast
• Miracle Jurassic Egg
• Whirlwind Weasle
• Swift Birdman Joe
• Mokey Mokey
• My Body as a Shield
• Pandemonium Watchbear
• Unshaven Angler

More from yugiohcardguide.com, a really complete Yu-Gi-Oh! card pictures and information site.

Is this because of Engrish? (follow the link for tons of mistranslation entertainment)

Thanks to Jonathan G.

Blurring the Line Between Books and Games

Hugo and Nebula award-winning sci-fi and fantasy author Orson Scott Card has made a name for himself with best sellers like Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead. Now he's taking his storytelling abilities to the world of video games with independent game developer Chair Entertainment.

While Card's writing fueled classic LucasArts games The Dig and The Secret of Monkey Island, his latest book, Empire, is part of a multiformat franchise that was conceived from the ground up for video games, comic books, novels and films.

Empire, which hits bookstores Nov. 28 from Tor Publishing, is set in a near-future America in which a civil war has erupted between the political left and the right. Card was involved from day one in building the franchise across entertainment mediums. He took some time to talk about his latest venture and to explain why he doesn't enjoy playing video games any more.

More on Wired.

Don't Shoot the Puppy

Funny game... click here and let me know how far you get.