blueZhift Blog

Well it looks like the Phantom party is nearly over at Infinium Labs! GamesIndustry.biz is reporting that Infinium Labs is nearly out of money and is seeking fresh financing to the tune of about $11M USD. Infinium, maker of the yet to be launched Phantom gaming console, has been the center of much controversy and even threatened a lawsuit against HardOCP over coverage that criticized Infinium’s business plan and company officers. In response, HardOCP launched its own lawsuit and won. With only about $21K USD on hand, it looks like the Phantom console, already delayed to Q2 2005, won’t ever see the light of day.

This whole Phantom episode reminds me of The Producers. In the movie two theatre producers over sell shares in their production and then set out to make the worst play ever so that it would close on opening night. That way there wouldn’t be a any profits to pay out to the shareholders. Unfortunately for them, their production of Springtime for Hitler turns out to be a wildly successful farce unraveling their plan and sending them to prison.

Now I’m not saying that that was the plan in the case of Infinium’s Phantom console! It’s just an interesting thought. I do wonder though, what will happen to all of the money invested if the Phantom never comes out. I suppose the stage will be set for write-offs and lawsuits.

As for the actual plan of downloading PC games to a consolized PC where they would self configure and install using scripts, it’s not totally crazy. It’s just that the world of PC games is too different from the world of console games. PC games tend to cater to people who know what to do with a PC and are not afraid of hours of building and tweaking to squeeze out extra performance. They also aren’t afraid to spends hundreds of dollars upgrading their boxes every year to play the latest and greatest.

Practically speaking, Infinium would be hard pressed to both keep their install scripts up to date, and upgrade the Phantom hardware for their customers. I doubt Microsoft or Sony could do this either! Not only that, these days the most popular PC games are first person shooters like Half Life 2 and Unreal Tournament and online games like World of Warcraft and Everquest. The people who are into these games are likely the very last who would ever sign up for the Phantom console service, and those who would won’t find the most popular games there. I think this is a classic no win situation.

Hi Ami! Hi Yumi! I had the great pleasure of watching their animated show, The Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi Show, premiere tonight on Cartoon Network with the kids. I must say that we all enjoyed it a great deal. It was funny and hip, and if you actually like Puffy AmiYumi, as I do, it was a treat. Honestly, I wasn’t expecting much since my memories of band inspired cartoons are such dreck as the Jackson 5′s, the Osmonds (I think), and the Partridge Family cartoon.

The stories were all funny without being crass and I really like the groovy retro look. The visual style is a mix of Powerpuff Girls, Dexter’s Laboratory, and a pinch of Samurai Jack with a nice dash of anime influence. The voice acting is good and I like the peppering of Japanese throughout and of course the intros by Ami and Yumi. They also make very good use of Puffy’s music which the kids really like having heard me playing it for the last couple of years. Best of all, Ami and Yumi’s friendship is an integral part of each story. Now that’s cool.

American football is a funny game. It’s rough and tough and so are its overwhelmingly male fans, or at least they’d like to be, I think… That’s why it is with some wonder and a little cynicism that I receive stories like the Janet Jackson Super Bowl wardrobe malfunction or now the ABC Monday Night Football steamy intro ruckus. I mean come on! Most of the people watching the game actually like seeing naked women. Who are these people calling in to complain? Meanwhile ABC has apologized to the viewers and the NFL (like they really care). Come on, ABC knew this would happen. Oh me oh my, look at all of this free publicity. Oh yeah, they’re really sorry.

Now back to the fans. Every year, like clockwork, a new Madden football game is released by Electronic Arts. And every year now, it sells millions of copies. Some fans complain that it’s just last year’s game with some tweaks and new stats. I don’t really believe that myself, but if EA really wants to shake things up, maybe they should slip in some of the naughtiness we’ve been seeing around the real game like steamy intros and wardrobe malfunctions. That would spice things up a bit for the 2006 edition! Of course, I guess they would have to add a 5 second delay too.

Well it looks like Pfizer is in trouble with the FDA. They’ve been asked to pull their Wild Thing Viagra ads because they failed to air warnings of possible side-effects and because the ads apparently make unsubstantiated claims regarding the return of sexual desire. Hmm, I guess it’s a slow Monday for the FDA! The warnings angle is fair enough, but the other stuff is a bit of a stretch.

All of the impotence drug ads imply that not only will you be able to have sex again, but that it will be better sex, especially if you use their product rather than their competitors. The ads are generally well made and feature attractive middle aged actors. Now whether most of the people using these drugs are anything like that is anyone’s guess, but I remember that when Viagra first came out, there were a lot of stories about really old guys running out trying the boink everything in sight, which wasn’t good for some of their hearts, or wives who were often left out of the aforementioned boinking!

I say caveat emptor, let the buyer beware. Sex may return with Viagra, but honestly, it probably won’t be any better than before. And I’d imagine that walking around with a h*rd *n with nowhere to go, cannot be any fun. But remember, as Viagra competitor Cialis (I think) says in their ads, erections lasting more than 4 hours are dangerous and you should seek immediate medical attention…Yeah riiiiiiiiight!

Heh heh! First let me say that I must be the kind of customer that Amazon just hates! Back in August I put in a preorder for Halo 2 Limited Edition just to make sure I would be able to get a copy when it came out. Halo 2 was released in the U.S. yesterday with hundreds if not thousands of gamers lining up at midnight across the country to be one of the first to get a legitimate copy of the game.

I checked my order on Amazon and noticed that not only had it not shipped, it actually had an arrival date of November 8. So I guess they had meant to get it to me by release time, but something had gone wrong. Well, the nearby Virgin Megastore had Halo 2 including the Limited Edition, so being fundamentally impatient, I cancelled my Amazon order and high tailed it over to the Virgin store in the closing minutes of my lunch break. I got the last copy of the limited edition! Not only that, it cost me $4 less than the Amazon price with shipping! So I could even brag to my wife of my frugality! If Amazon did have shipping issues, I wonder if they saw a lot of cancellations yesterday?

As for the game itself, I’ve only had time to put in a hour’s worth of play and have died about a half dozen times, but I must say that I like it! There’s a lot of debate online about mouse keyboard versus console controller for first person shooters (fps). Most PC gamers believe that mouse and keyboard are best, and I tend to agree. But for Halo at least, getting used to using the controller is pretty easy. So don’t let controller bigotry keep you from playing this game! Oh so why have I died so much? Well, I suck! At least for now, and I haven’t read the manual either. I used to be a crusader with regard to manuals, but these days I like to just jump in and see how much I can pick up just playing. People generally won’t read manuals anyway, which is something I keep in mind when designing and writing software for my own projects and work.

Anyway, if you like fps games, this is a good one to get. The graphics and sound are very good and the control scheme is easy to get into, even for old school fps gamers. Hey, it even has a decent story developing. So that’s my one hour review! I’ll add to this later, I hope! The real fun won’t begin until I try it on Xbox Live! Here are some links to other reviews.

GameSpy

1up.com

Yahoo! Games Domain

Like a lot of people, I’ve been kinda down since the election on Tuesday. Part of it is of course the disappointment that my guy didn’t win the presidency. But a part of it is just the emotional exhaustion that the whole political season has wrought. Well life goes on, get over it…

One of the most interesting things about the past election is the entry of the terms "red states" and "blue states" into the American lexicon. Not since the Civil War can I remember any terms that so succinctly sum up the division that has developed in this country. Never before in my adult life have I seen such passion and hatred directed at the presidential candidates. And now as the pattern of red states and blue states is etched in my mind, I think I can imagine how people must have felt when we had free states and slave states. It really does feel like we now have two countries where there once was only one, each side wondering how the other can possibly think and live the way they do. Of course, those of us in the blue states are right you know!

It’s the day after election day and just like 4 years ago, we don’t know who won the presidency of the United States. But you know what? It looks like that dumb ass Bush has won once again and I mean dumb ass in the most positive way… Despite all of the job losses, despite all of the lives lost in the quagmire that is Iraq, and despite our loss of world respect and prestige, it looks like America has chosen Bush again! Not only does it look like he has won, but the voting pattern is virtually the same as the last time. So all of that bad stuff I just mentioned didn’t appear to affect the way people voted. At least here in Illinois, I had the great pleasure of helping send Barrack Obama to the Senate!

There was much talk of the high turnout and many new voters. Well, it looks like most of those voters just went out and voted for Bush. Either that or the voting patterns of the new voters were no different than those who voted in the last election. Bottom line, if Bush can preside over so much bad stuff and still win against a reasonably strong candidate, then America deserves the fool it gets. In the Bible it says that God will give kingdoms to whatever fool He wishes to. Well in last night’s election it looks like that has happened again. God help us!