Chinese Internet Rehab Camps
Four great words that go great together. Oh yeah, you know there’s some beatings going on in here.
China is seeing a huge shift into an online nation. Some 300-million people go online in that country (compare to the USA’s total population of around 304-million), despite the unproductive and draconian internet censorship imposed by their government.
With that sort of number, you’d have to expect a certain percentage of people would become addicted, or obsessed with online activities. An even greater percentage would be kids whose parents think they’re addicted. And that’s where the rehabilitation camps come in. DailyTech has the story.
Slightly Late Game Reviews: NES Joust
Arcade machines in the 80s were bastards. Later on, I would learn they were built to the two-minute standard. Three lives, just enough to last through two minutes of play, then you’re out and pawing through your Levis for another quarter. But way back then, younger me just knew I’d better have a few week’s worth of allowance on me when the family went out to the frozen yogurt shop. And for good reason.
That’s where the Joust machine lived.
Lived, perhaps, isn’t the best term. Lurked, waited, hungered, maybe. Crouched in darkness near the back of the store, just off the restroom entrance, it was a sit-down cabinet, the table-top kind, where 1982′s most glorious colours and sounds flickered with temptation beneath a glass top and your vanilla-chocolate …
38 Studios Aims to Challenege World of Warcraft
Because fighting a land war in Asia is always a good move for a startup company. 38 Studios is a gaming and media company owned by Curt Schilling, a retired baseball pro. The company’s motto is “World Domination Through Gaming” which I can respect, since it’s what Vox is supposed to do… Regardless, 38 Studios has set their sights high.
Their flagship game is Copernicus, a fantasy MMORPG based on the works of R.A Salvatore and the art of Todd MacFarlane. Cultural bedrocks, both.
But 38 Studios has just lost their CEO of three years, one Brett Close from Electronic Arts, and the company is still searching for funding beyond what their sports hero sugar daddy can provide.
VentureBeat has the whole story.
In the Lobby, No, Not That One; Congress
Lobbyists. The video game industry pulls down several billion human dollars a year, so of course they have a lobbying group. The mammoth businesses involved need to create a legal climate conducive to their business, after all. Forbes.com reports on the actions of the Entertainment Software Association, an industry lobby that includes the likes of Microsoft, Electronic Arts, and Nintendo.
Lord of the Rings Online Runs “Welcome Back Week”
Lord of the Rings Online is currently running a special event week to haul back old players and bring in fresh meat. This “Welcome Back Week” is scheduled for August 18 to 24.
Normally, we here at Vox wouldn’t pass along free advertising (paid advertising can be purchased in slots above and to the right), but Turbine has thrown a little something extra into the pot. Something along the lines of free play for returning subscribers, and a 25% XP bonus that stacks. Also, preview content from Book 8: Scourge of Khazad- dûm.
We have it on good authority that LOTRO is a pretty decent game if you’re into the atmosphere of Middle Earth. If you’re undecided, this might be a good time to …
Star Trek Online, Five Minutes of Heaven
(Deep breath.) Khaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan!
Star Trek is a multigenerational masterwork of ongoing storytelling that managed to span not just decades of time, but the ever evolving cultural ebb and flow of corporate momentum and public nostalgia. Taking such a vastly hallowfied and recrafted property is going to be something of a strange event for any MMO that wants to throw itself behind this vast, spiraling narrative that cannot fix itself in space, time, or even a single story universe (see: the newest Star Trek offering which basically resets the entire Star Trek storyline.)
Reports from Cryptic Studios—the people who brought us City of Heroes/Villains and will bring us Champions Online—inform that the once ailing MMO property Star Trek Online is back on track and will
…
One Laptop Per Child in Action
Those who know me know that I really care about connectivity. Not just the blinkenlights on my router, but getting people together and getting them online. The online world is the future of humanity, and those left behind will, in a few decades, be considered something of a different and lesser species.
Also, I believe that the most damaging aspect of poverty is a case of close horizons. That is, those growing up in disadvantaged environments cannot see past their immediate surroundings, their immediate needs. They are trapped in poverty by their own expectations; they never see that escape is possible.
One Laptop Per Child is a drive to get inexpensive, durable, connected laptops into the hands of children across the globe. With these laptops, the poor and the isolated can learn about themselves and the world, and hook up with the global …
Gamers go to Hell, Dante’s Inferno Trailer
With a release date set near the beginning of 2010, EA has decided to deliver a delicious, but totally sparse trailer for their upcoming offering: Dante’s Inferno. We’ve seen other games before offered and published based on Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy but with the current generation of consoles and graphics cards backing it up, we might have something fun spring forth from the spume.
According to sources this game is currently under development by the same studio that gave us the survival horror Dead Space.
Like the epic poem it’s based on, Dante’s Inferno follows a descent through the nine circles of hell–limbo, lust, gluttony, greed, anger, violence, heresy, fraud, and treachery–where a sinner’s soul suffers for all eternity. Rather than seeing the protagonist as a passive …
Crash To Desktop – 8/18/2009
Welcome to Crash To Desktop, the daily series where I explore my feminine side. Thank you for visiting. While you’re here, best sign up to our Twitter feed. Otherwise, something unfortunate might happen.
In my days, I’ve played an awful lot of games, and built a dozen times as many characters. Character creation is a vital part of gaming, especially in this era of MMORPGs and 100-hour storyfests like those that keep Square-Enix and Bethesda in business.
What many games still don’t realize is that character creation can and should be a game in itself.
Some games caught on to this early. The NES game 1943, a standard shooter, opened up with a grid where you could allocate points between firepower, protection, speed, special weapon time, and such. Primitive, but effective, as the choices you made on that grid would …
Icecream Headache: The Guild – Do You Wanna Date My Avatar
Making the rounds of the video game blogosphere, a music video by the hopefully now-famous online drama show “The Guild.” Featuring World of Warcraft game humor and a guild of equally maladjusted, but adorable, characters, we’ve always had a great deal of fun watching these and look forward to it continuing for some time.
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