Items tagged with "join" on the iVirtua Community

*obligatory I'm new here line

I didn't get an email or anything but I was looking for some gaming forums and this seemed like a good one, so I decided to join.

Anyway, I'm Lexie, I like bananas and pancakes,
playing online games and reading (although not at the same time!)

Well, that's about it

Hi everyone!

"Important? Tennis games?!" I hear some of you scoff. And sure,while few of us really look forward to the next iteration of Top Spinor even Virtua Tennis, the genre has played a major role in the birthand development of the videogame industry. Even now, it's often tennisgames that are pushing the frontiers of analogue sensitivity andcomplexity against the need for intuitive user-friendliness in consolecontrols.
So, while Wimbledon hots up, here's a quick run through of the keytitles, together with nostalgic YouTube footage. Grab a bowl ofstrawberries, some clotted cream and a cheeky glass of Pinot (I don't care if you're at work - get into the spirit of things) and join me on a brief amble down tennis memory lane.
Tennis for Two (1958, Oscilloscope)
Running on the oscilloscope at the Brookhaven National Laboratory andprogrammed by physicist William Higinbotham, Tea for Two was arguablythe first computer game ever made (though some point to the evenearlier project, OXO). Check out the YouTube footage!
Pong (arcade, 1972)
Al Alcorn's take on the Magnavox Odyssey Tennis game essentiallykickstarted the games industry, both in the arcades and later, on homeconsoles. The title symbolises the odd, apologist relationship gamershave with software - many claimed to be able to produce spin on theball, although this functionality was never part of the program (thedirection of the ball was affected by the area on which it struck thebat, but that was about it).
Match Point (1984, Spectrum)
Psion Software's early effort pitched featureless stickmen against eachother in a rough approximation of the Wimbledon finals. The visualswere sparse but the simulation was pretty advanced for the time -players could control the speed and direction of the ball with defttiming and after-touch. Looking back, the ball boys bear an unfortunateresemblance to Starvin Marvin from South Park. YouTube video here.
Super Tennis (1991, SNES)
Perhaps the first modern day tennis sim, featuring an array of courtsurfaces, lots of differently-skilled players and several two-playermodes. It is, however, mostly remembered for its fast, intuitive action- a sort of Tennis equivalent of Sensible World of Soccer. Thescrolling court visuals and crisp sound samples impressed gamers at thetime, too. YouTube it up!
Pete Sampras Tennis (1994, Mega Drive)
Codemasters' sleek Mega Drive effort matched Super Tennis for sheerplayability, adding some of its own eccentric features, including aCrazy Tennis mode where you could play against portly platform hero,Dizzy. Codies also introduced its J-Cart technology allowing up tofour-players to take part in doubles matches.
Virtua Tennis (1999, arcade and Dreamcast)
The defining tennis sim of the modern era. The Dreamcast original mixedintuitive controls with lovely animation to produce a simulation ofincredible depth. The World Tour mode was an inspired addition,providing a range of surreal mini-games to test different aspects ofyour game. Subsequent iterations have tweaked the formula and improvedthe visuals, but the essence of this Sega NAOMI/Dreamcast classicremains unmolested. Here's a trailer.
Wii Sports Tennis (2006, Wii)
A popular element of the revolutionary Wii Sports compilation, drawingimpressively accurate motion-sensing performance from the Wiimote.Okay, so your lack of control over the onscreen player could getannoying at times, but the fun of acting out physically extravagantshots - often at the risk of the odd patio door or Ming dynasty vase -is what this game was all about. Here is a silly Wii Tennis 'accident' movie.
Okay, so what vital tennis titles have I missed? The first person tosuggest Anna Kournikova's Smash Court Tennis will be sent to thenaughty step.

WWDC 2008 is currently taking place from June 9 to June 13 at Moscone West, San Francisco.

Applereported that, for the first time, this conference is sold out. Thereare three tracks for developers, iPhone, Mac, and IT.

Announcementsat the keynote included the App Store for iPhone and iPod Touch, thestable version of the iPhone SDK, a subsidized 3G version of the iPhonefor Worldwide markets, version 2.0 of the iPhone OS, Mac OS X v10.6,and the replacement/rebranding of .Mac as MobileMe.
Mac OS X version 10.6 "Snow Leopard" is the presumptive designation of Apple's next major version of Mac OS X. It was announced by Apple CEO Steve Jobs at WWDC on June 9, 2008. It is scheduled to ship "about a year" from the announcement.
Mac OS X v10.6 will not introduce any major new features, ratherfocusing on improving performance, stability and reducing the footprintof Mac OS X. However, full support for Microsoft Exchange will be included.
Snow Leopard

MobileMe
Difference between .Mac and MobileMe
While mostly replacing .Mac (which was primarily centered aroundInternet services for Apple's desktop and notebook computers), MobileMeprovides Internet services for both Mac OS X and the iPhone OS as well as the iPod touch device and Microsoft Windowsusers. This means that now you are not restricted to a Mac runningsoftware like Mail and iCal, but can access your personal data from anycomputer connected to the internet.

Features
Storage
20GB of online storage featuring 200GB of monthly transfer. Thefamily pack includes this for the main user as well as 5GB of storageand 50GB of transfer for each sub user (up to four additional users)

Mail
Free Push Mail. Includes a @me.com email address. When a message is received it is sent directly to all the user's devices.

Address Book
Address Book (Push). When a contacted is added or amended it is updated immediately on all the user's devices.

Calendar
Calendar (Push). When a calendar appointment is added or amended it is updated immediately on all the user's devices.

Gallery
Public photo gallery. Photos can be uploaded in the web browser or synced by iPhoto on a mac

iDisk
iDisk, which is accessible via a web browser, the Finder on a Mac, or as a remote disk in Microsoft Windows.The iDisk can also share files by emailing a link to the intendedrecipient. Another feature is to set an expiration on the link. Thismeans access to file will stop after a set number of downloads or aftercertain time period.

Web 2.0
MobileMe uses web 2.0 technologies to provide the look and feel of desktop-class applications in the user's web browser.

Pricing
An Individual purchase of a MobileMe account for one-year is $99 USD (£59), while a Family Packsubscription (which includes one individual account and four familyaccounts with a specific email address for each one) is $149 USD (£89)for one year. The Individual account will have 20GB of combined emailand file storage and 200GB of monthly data transfer, while the FamilyPack will have, for each account in the Pack, 5GB of combined email andfile storage, and 50GB of monthly data transfer.

Competitors
MobileMe is supposed to comprise Microsoft Exchange-like features for consumers.

Browser Support
MobileMe's online services can be accessed in Desktop Applications.MobileMe also allows access to the user's data in desktop-likeenvironment in a web browser. Featured browsers are:

Safari 3 or later (Mac + PC)
Firefox 2 or later (Mac + PC)
Internet Explorer 7 (PC)

iPhone 2.0

Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync support
Push email
Push contacts
Push calendar
Global Address List
Certificates and Identities
WPA2/802.1x
Enforced security policies
Extra keyboard languages including Chinese and Korean
Cisco IPsec VPN support
Device configuration
Remote wipe
Ability to view PowerPoint attachments
Mass email delete
Mass email move
Bonjour service discovery protocol
Support for SVG
Parental controls
Ability to search contacts
App Store (To manage third-party applications)
New "Calendar" menu in "Settings"
Updated calculator with extra features in portrait mode, a scientific calculator in landscape mode and an updated icon.
Updated iTunes with a new icon and reordered category icons within iTunes application.
Ability to save or open images from websites in Safari
Support for Traditional and Simplified Chinese handwriting recognition
Geotagging
Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, Finnish, Polish, Korean and Brazilian Portuguese language interface in iPhone, previously these languages were only in the iPod Touch since 1.1.1

Workers hang Apple's logo outside Moscone Center, where the Worldwide Developers Conference kicks off Monday.
(Credit: James Martin/CNET News.com)
Expect to hear new details about the future of Apple's Mac OS X andWeb business next week at the Worldwide Developers Conference--and wethink there might be a new iPhone, too.
On Monday, Apple CEO Steve Jobs will take the stage at the Moscone WestConvention Center in San Francisco to address a gathering of Apple'sdevelopers and the media. This year's WWDCis sold out to the development community, who will be hearing formalpresentations by Apple on both Mac and iPhone development during theweek's sessions and meetings.
Anyone with even a passing interest in consumer electronics is probably aware that Apple is expected to unveil the next generation of the iPhone in the near future. The older version has been sold out for weeks as we approach the anniversary of the first model's debut, and anticipation of a model that can connect to 3G cellular networks has been building almost since that date last year.
One of the primary drawbacks of the first iteration of the iPhone hasbeen its reliance on the slower EDGE network outside of Wi-Fi hotspots, which can make downloading a Web page an exercise in patience.Upgrading to a faster connection should encourage people to do more Webbrowsing outside of Wi-Fi connections and could open up a whole newclass of applications that need a faster pipe to work effectively.
Apple is also expected to include GPS technologyinside the latest version, another development that could pique thesoftware development community's interest in the iPhone. Location-awareservices are available on several phones that use GPS technology, andthe iPhone developers could soon be ready to join the party.
Will the new iPhone be available immediately following Jobs' keynote?It's not clear. There have been conflicting reports, but Brian Tong ofCNET TV is hearing from his sources that Apple Retail employees havenot yet been told whether they'll need to report early on Monday for aspecial training session, which the company has done in the past beforemajor announcements.

Next Monday, Apple CEO Steve Jobs could announce a new iPhone and a new operating system.
(Credit: Apple)
While the iPhone gets all the attention as the new kid on the block,WWDC is always, in large part, about the Mac. Apple chose a picture oftwo Golden Gate bridges branching off in different directions toillustrate its WWDC invitation, and while the iPhone branch mightaccount for the sold-out conference, the Mac branch is the bread andbutter of this conference.
The Unofficial Apple Weblogreported on Wednesday that Apple would be providing developers with anearly version of Mac OS X 10.6 during the conference. It's unclearwhether that means Apple is ready to start demonstrating features fromthat release, but the report said the new version is expected to focuson "stability and security."
Apple released Leopard, Mac OS X 10.5, last October after a delay needed to make sure the iPhone arrived on time. At the time, Jobs told The New York Times that he wants Apple to stick to an operating-system deployment cycle of 12 to 18 months.
TUAW's report says Apple could be eyeing a Macworld 2009 release forMac OS X 10.6, which would certainly nestle within that time frame.Microsoft recently said it wants to get the next version of Windows out by the end of 2009.
Another interesting part of that report is the notion that 10.6 will bean Intel-only release. Users of older Macs running PowerPC chips wereable to upgrade to Leopard, but the report suggests that Apple willdrop PowerPC support with the next release.
Apple will likely spend a healthy portion of Jobs' keynote discussingMac OS X, but it remains to be seen how much of a peek we'll get at thenext version. One question on the minds of many Apple users: afterwhich big cat will Apple choose to name the next release?
Ars Technica's Infinite Loopreported Wednesday that "Snow Leopard" was the name slated for the nextversion, which sounds like it could be somewhat confusing, given thefact that the current version is called Leopard. In a poll on TUAW'ssite, "Cougar" was in the lead, trailed by "Lynx" and "LOLcat," the last of which we can probably eliminate.
The third leg of the WWDC presentation could involve Apple's .Macservice. There have been a number of recent signs that Apple isrethinking its presence on the Internet, with new domain names beingsnapped up by the company and code strings in the iPhone SDK suggesting that a new name is on tap.
One interesting thing to watch for concerning any new version of .Macis how much of the service Apple keeps in-house, as opposed to bringinga Web-savvy partner like Google into the mix. The .Mac service is a good idea, but it isn't widely used among Mac users due to issues with its stability, feature list, and price tag.
Any or all of those objections could change, if Apple transfers theback end of the service to a huge Internet services provider likeGoogle, and uses the service to bring Macs and iPhones together ininteresting ways.
As usual, Apple is very tight-lipped about what may or may not bearriving during this year's WWDC. The latest iPhone may or may not beready for an actual release on the first day of the show, but expectthe topic to be the highlight of the day's announcements.

WWDC 2007 Keynote Live Coverage here at iVirtua Community

Microsoft is looking to reorganise Xbox Live content to make it easierfor users to navigate around the thousands of items that have beenadded since the console's 2005 launch.
"Longer term, we're looking to make the ability to find contentand organise the 17,000 pieces of content we have a lot better," AaronGreenberg, product management director for Xbox 360 and Xbox Live, toldMTV Multiplayer.
The last hint Microsoft dropped about an Xbox Live revamp was in a February job advertseeking someone to join the team "building the games, the consoleinterface and logic, and the server support for a totally new Liveexperience".

Microsoft has already taken steps to reduce the densityof content on Xbox Live, recently announcing plans to cull Xbox LiveArcade games that have under-performed - something that Greenberg has previously said would force other developers to "focus on game quality now more than ever".
Speaking to Multiplayer, Greenberg stopped short of confirming that anew version of Xbox Live is on the cards, but the platform holderrecently skipped over the traditional spring dashboard update and thosedevelopers are unlikely to have gone on holiday instead.

After a long build up, including an eight-week delay to apply the final polish, Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures (AoC) has been launched.

The game is widely seen as one that has a chance of taking on the current king of the online gaming heap - World of Warcraft (WoW).

That battle for a share of the global online gaming world is one that the mighty Conan himself would relish. At stake are fame, respect and untold riches.

The BBC News website got a chance to play through the early levels of the game and right from the opening moments it is obvious that the cosy world of WoW has been left far behind. It's not for nothing that the game is rated 18.

The game opens on a galley ship on which both male and female characters are slaves. Under attack, the ship sinks and the character is washed up on the beach of an island called Tortage naked but for a loin cloth and shackles.

From those opening moments the graphical detail of the game is a huge leap forward from the rather "cartoon-y" look of WoW. It even rivals Lord of The Rings Online in the graphical stakes. That detail comes at a price - the minimum specs are quite high.

Joe Best, associate producer at publishers Eidos, said: "We really want this to be full fat but also scalable to the PCs of the last few years."

The opening is worthy of a Conan story in which the hero is left to craft his, or her, destiny with their bare hands. The first quests involve finding a way to remove the shackles and then kill the man who enslaved you.

For the first 20 levels of the game, players will be pretty much alone, said Joe Best, an associate producer at Eidos.

The "linear" nature of those early levels on Tortage is where players become familiar with the game world, the abilities of their character and how to play. After that they get to join the larger MMO world of AoC.

During those early levels the most important lessons learned are those that show how to fight.

Combat, bloody visceral combat, is at the heart of the Conan stories and the game is no exception. One of the first decisions made when the game was being drawn up, said Mr Best, was that the combat would be "ferocious".

"It's not about watching your character fight for you," he said. "they really wanted to break away from that "point and click" aspect of MMOs."

In games such as World of Warcraft characters attack automatically once they are directed to a target. In AoC the on-screen character only does what it is told. That's necessary as enemies adapt their fighting style to defend against the way they are attacked so that involvement is key.

And the combat is involving, much more so than WoW, where the same attacks and spells will despatch the same types of foe.

There is no doubt that it is fun to use combos and alter your attacks to beat a foe to the ground, or knock them back and then leap forward to finish them off with a panther-like grace that would win a nod of approval from the massive Cimmerian, Conan himself.

The BlackBerry Bold will allow users to talk on the phone while sending emailsand accessing the internet. The device also features a 2-megapixel camerawith video recording capability, a gigabyte of memory, and a media playerfor watching movies and managing music collections.
Sir Martin Sorrell, the chief executive of advertising giant WPP is oneexecutive rarely seen without his Blackberry, nicknamed a CrackBerry in theCity. Easy Group founder Stelios Haji-Ioannou is rumoured to use hisBlackBerry to check his emails before he gets out of bed.
However, some analysts have expressed concern in recent months that corporateusers could cut back on spending on such items in the current challengingmarket environment.

Research in Motion (RIM), the creator of the BlackBerry, yesterday announcedthe launch of an updated version - the BlackBerry Bold - in an apparentattempt to compete with Apple, which is tipped to launch a third generation(3G) version of its iPhone next month.
RIM promises that added processing power will "make short work of downloadingemail attachments, streaming video or rendering web pages."
In what appears a direct move on Apple's potential customer base, RIM saidmusic is now more easily downloaded and a new application provides "a simpleway to sync iTunes digital music collections with the smartphone".


There are also industry concerns that Apple will beat RIM to the market inJune with its hotly anticipated 3G iPhone as the Bold is not expected tocome to the market until late August.
The BlackBerry Bold rolls out globally this summer and is expected to costbetween $300 and $400 (£153 to £206). While corporate users are its maintarget, it is expected that the new device will be picked up by a widermarket.
RIM has been aggressively working at diversifying its client base in pursuitof non-business users and has placed a greater emphasis on appearance in thecreation of the new device. The Bold has a sleek silver rim, a large glassdisplay area and its removable back is covered in black leatherette. Usersare able to personalise their BlackBerry by buying replacement backs in avariety of colours.
BlackBerry has seen its subscriber base nearly double each year for the pastthree years and the device has 14 million users in 135 countries. More thana third of its customers are now classified as non-government andnon-corporate users.
RIM separately announced yesterday that it would join forces with ThomsonReuters, the international media company and several private Canadianinvestors, to form a $150 million venture capital fund that will invest inthe best emerging mobile applications and services. The move is similar toa $100 million venture capital effort announced in March to develop softwarefor Apple’s iPhone.
Earlier this month, RIM announced quarterly results which beat analysts'expectations and bucked the downturn. RIM's net profit for the quarter stoodat $412.5 million (£206.9 million), up from $187.4 million a year earlier.The Canadian firm saw revenue soar 102 per cent to $1.88 billion (£950million) in the same period compared with $930.4 million last year.

A pretty hefty demo of Race Driver:Grid has just launched on Xbox Live (and later today on PSN) includinga time trial competition for which Codemasters will be giving away aBMW 3-Series.

The single-player Grid World events and 12 playeronline racing would usually be the main attractions of a demo. But youmight want to join the lap-time geeks in the Time Trial mode, becausethere's a beemer in it for the fastest lap time.

Instead ofCodies just keeping an eye on the leaderboards though, you have tosubmit your fastest time through the official site. Then theyauthenticate it, and the top five players at midnight on Friday, May 23will compete in a finalists play-off.

Codies will lob the vroom vroom to whoever wins the head-to-head racesat the final in the Zavvi Store on Oxford Street, London, on the game'sMay 30 launch day.

Also in the demo: "Take to the wheel of aFord Mustang GT-R on the streets of San Francisco in the eBay MotorsMuscle Cup; in Japan, compete in a Nissan S15 Silvia in the Advan DriftTrophy at Yokohama Docks, while the sweeping curves and hairpins of theJarama circuit in Spain plays host to the Euro Touring Carschampionship featuring BMW 320si touring cars."

Oh, and here are three new screens to peek at while you download the demo.

At last week's Futuresonic08Social Media Summit in Manchester, I was asked to piece togethersomething for a session on Urban & Social Media about play. And soI threw together an impromptu web-based overview of some of thelocation-based gaming experiments that have come to my attention overthe past few years. It follows a trajectory from adaptations throughuses of new media in a game-like way to fully-fledged new forms ofgaming dependent upon social technology. Keep reading for a primer onthe key events of location-based games.

The Age of Adaptation
The first games are more like homages to games, creating something in reality from something in virtuality.
First up is a simple adaptation of the classic Gameboy title Tetris,performed by the residents of a student hall at Tampere University.It's a classic - performing the puzzle drops for an audience ofonlookers and interacting between one another (and audience-players)using mobile phones. But this episode didn't incorporate social media(unless you count phones as social); it was an homage using thefacilities to hand.
PacManhattan isa similar extension of a transformation of a game from one medium toanother. Using the city streets of Manhattan, the performance occurredwithin the social environment, but external to it. The players wereonly those who were dressed up in silly costumes trying to achievetheir goals. No one else had the opportunity to have a go.
Still, the game of chase did break up the monotony of the daily commute for some city slickers.
And then there are the artists who use urban landscapes as thesettings for adaptations of old faithful game mechanics; thefirst-person-shooter-inspired Cruel 2 B Kind invites players to blast their ways around real-life locations using words of kindness rather than bullets. More examples are here, from the BFI's Hide and Seek programme.
One-sided gaming
The next series of games focussed more on the urban and rural spacesthey took place in, creating game goals to fit, rather than fitting agame into the locations.
Geocaching is a populartreasure hunt facilitated by GPS technology. Players locate an objectsomewhere in the country, take a small bit and leave something behindfor the next person. It's an analog adaptation of social media usingthe technology to support the play.
Similarly, players of the Japanese game Superstarused a variety of technologies to identify hidden gems in the urbanTokyo landscape - Puri Kura sticker machines, mobile phones, websites -and competed to generate the most connections between players.Interaction between players was sparse, and social media was used asjust another pawn in the overall goal.
Interaction and interactivity
Increasingly, artists and game developers are using social media andtechnology to connect players within the urban space. Blast Theory's Uncle Roy All Around You, and Rider Spoke(I have an extra ticket for the event happening on Sunday in Brighton -email gamesblog +at+ gmail.com if you'd like to come along) establishmutual goals for distributed people who interact via technologies.
On the other hand, We Tell Stories,a join initiative between Penguin and ARG developers Six to Start,situates participants in new technologies which document real-lifelandscapes as settings for interactive storytelling.
The Age of Mixed Reality
But the current front-runner in the integration of landscape and gaminghas been the initiatives propelled forward by ARG developers like JaneMcGonigal, Six to Start and 42 Entertainment. Inspired by books like Masquerade or ongoing broadcast projects like La Chouette D'Or(both the products of previous technologies), these game designers usenew media to bring people together in order to identify real-worldlocations which are part of the games. The famous I Love Bees phone box puzzle,which brought players together in a real-world location to hear garbledinformation at the other end of a public telephone line, or MindCandy's Perplex City puzzles like Find Satoshi, or 41 Entertainment's Vanishing Point which used landscapes as its clues, are integrating technologies and urban space in ways which herald a new generation of location-based gaming.
Which is nice, because when it's sunny, I want to play outside.

Id Software has announced today thatproduction has begun on DOOM 4, and the developer is "expanding itsinternal team" to work on the next instalment of the spooky shooter.

"DOOM is part of the id Software DNAand demands the greatest talent and brightest minds in the industry tobring the next instalment of our flagship franchise to Earth," saidTodd Hollenshead, CEO, id Software.

Proof that The Times does actually have a sympathetic ear for video gaming, it has published an interview with Leslie Benzies, president of Edinburgh-based Rockstar North. The ‘interview’ is kind of light on actual dialogue between the interviewer and interviewee, which would have made for an interesting read, but instead the writer opted to focus on how good Rockstar is at getting nasty things said about it by ratings boards, politicians and policemen.

Never mind though because Benzies did have a few things to share about how he and the company see the controversies that swirl around nearly every game they produce. Lashing anti-video game critics, he said “There is a big fear factor here. It’s the coming of the railways, it’s Elvis shaking his hips. It’s cars going over 25 miles per hour and making people explode.”

He also questions why games get different treatment to other media, observing “We wanted to make a horror game [Manhunt] that would scare you in the same way a film would. It doesn’t seem to me to be any worse than a film. If it’s a film or a book, you can do what you want. We seem to be in a different category.”

Speaking of Manhunt; I was particularly disappointed to notice that The Times has managed to once again to perpetuate the myth that the tragic murder of Stefan Pakeerah in 2004 had anything to do with the game. Keith Vaz may desperately want it to be the cause but the FACT, as explained by the police investigating, was that the victim owner the game, NOT the killer.

On the whole though, it feels like Rockstar has moved on to a more mature mindset following recent events. Back during the Manhunt 2 ban, it was out there fighting, seemingly wanting to bring down the BBFC on its own. Now with GTA IV about to release, the developers are revealing more sensitive sides, emphasizing their understanding of the games INTENDED market (i.e. not children).

“We’re very careful about who we market the game to and what is in the game,” explains Benzies.

GTA IV, although still ripe with all the content that caused controversy years ago (cops to shoot, hookers to beat) doesn’t appear to have pushed the obscene violence too much further. This coupled with Rockstar’s maturing attitude could be paving the way for gaming’s renaissance.

The Times couldn’t resist a parting shot though: it wheeled out some scientist who reckons that playing video games damages children’s brains and robs them of their personalities. How do you even argue with that kind of statement?

Be they concerned and clueless parents who want to save the chilluns or outraged hardline Christian campaigners Hell-bent on the collapse of the evil games industry, those who are part of the league against gaming have to adhere to a set of rules like everyone else -- in fact, these guys crave laws and regulations more than anybody. How fitting, then, that they too have their Ten Golden Rules.

Whether you're an anti-gamer scouring the blogs for evidence of yet more interactive torture porn, or a hardcore gamer who's getting bored of all that pretend violence and is considering a move into joining the Parents Television Council, these are the rules for you. Learn them, love them, oppress the world with them.

1: Exaggerate, twist, but above all ... LIE!:

If you have a problem with videogames, there's every chance that you have a valid and sensible reason for doing so at heart. Let's face facts, though -- when has being sensible ever made the headlines? If you want your kids to stop playing Grand Theft Auto, then you're going to have to exercise your right as an American to make stuff up and invent things until you get a call from the local news network. This is for America!

Simply saying, "There's no conclusive proof that videogames are psychologically damaging, but it's best to play it safe where kids are concerned," is NEVER going to make the public listen. Lying in the name of morality isn't immoral, so do it as often and as loudly as possible. Society enjoys being lied to, anyway — it's how FOX News still operates — so you're basically doing the public a service.

In order to get your point across, if you want to claim that a game has "realistic sex" in it or that it "simulates murder", then you need to go for it. The stuff in the game is almost as bad as all that, and "almost" is as good as "absolutely completely" in today's modern, hurly-burly world.

2: Fear is the best insurance that money can buy:

Backed by your hyperbole and twisted truth, you need to whip up like-minded crusaders into a frenzy of terror in order to make sure you really blaze some trails. Scare-mongering was voted America's favorite mongering 2006, beating out fish-mongering and rumor-mongering by 23% of the votes. In order to spread your fear like wildfire, you need to target the right demographic -- the bored, overemotional housewife with nothing better to do. FOX-Fodder, as I like to call them.

Housewives are walking goldmines to anybody looking to start a moral campaign against games. They are the Scooby-Doos of society -- easily terrified and barely intelligible. They are also your prime recruiting stock, so make sure to cultivate them wisely. Once most people give birth to a child, something happens in their brains to instantly turn them into confused and illogical loudmouths who will do anything you want them to in the name of protecting the children. We have been able to prove this with brain scans from Harvard. I can't let you see the scans, but I assure you they are real.

People fear what they don't understand, and destroy what they fear. It's pretty much how any dictator rises through the ranks to seize power from a bleating and dazed populace. You do want to be a dictator, don't you?

Some might say that using terror to get your own way is pretty much what someone in Al-Qaeda would do. I say that anybody who thinks like that is a terrorist -- GET THEM!

3: Your experts are experts. Experts that contradict you are not experts:

Being able to say "research shows..." is one of the greatest gifts that God ever gave us. Nobody can ever argue with research, because it shows so much. The best part of it is that nobody in the mainstream media ever actually asks you who did the research, so you don't even have to actually get any real statistics. Just know that there IS research out there, showing things. We saw a bit of it once.

The problem is, you may encounter some persistently annoying gamers (read: sociopathic basement-dwellers) who have research of their own that shows just as many things as YOUR research. Never fear, though, because you are armed with the SECOND greatest gift that God ever gave us -- ignorance!

All you need to do to counter the conflicting evidence is to discredit the experts who are contradicting you. It doesn't matter if Dr. Tanya Byron says that there's no conclusive proof over the harm games can do, and who cares what Doctors Kutner and Olson think? You have some colorful patterns on a piece of paper, and NOBODY is beating that! Clearly anybody who disagrees with you doesn't know what they are talking about and doesn't deserve to be discussed. Now you can keep on using your real experts and never have to worry about tackling the educated opinions of those that disagree with you.

People can find an expert opinion to back up any claim they make. Your expert opinion is the only valid one, however, because it's yours!

4: Use terms like "desensitize" as if they actually mean something:

The right buzz words are essential for the budding anti-games lobbyist, because buzz words allow you to make things sound bad without ever having to explain what, exactly, is so bad about them. Saying that games "desensitize" people to violence is an incredibly popular tactic. Nobody actually knows the terrible consequences of media desensitization, but it just sounds like they'd be negative, so naturally anything that could desensitize is automatically evil. Even though the desensitization claim doesn't actually mean anything, the population will be eating out of your hand -- if only because you used a word with six syllables in it, and people are too stupid to understand it.

Since you're already building a new career on half-truths and lies, you might as well make up some brand new terms as well. "Torture porn" is a tried-and-tested one, but this particular writer would also suggest "PreySlay-tion 3," "SINulation," and "Murderactive Killtertainment."

5: "In GTA, you can hire a prostitute, beat her to death and then steal her money.":

Get used to saying this a lot, because it's just as shocking as it was when it was first said in 2001. Also, practice being outraged as you say it, as if it's brand new and still absolutely inconceivable. People have the attention spans of flies, and will have forgotten that they heard the exact same sentence from another pundit only yesterday.

6: Pass yourself off as an expert:

Because nobody listens to just ANY ranting fundamentalist conservative or spineless whiny liberal, you will need some credentials to back up your outrage. Don't worry -- they needn't be meaningful credentials, just something vaguely cobbled together that a news outlet can run underneath your name to make it look like you know what you are talking about.

This is all a matter of perspective. For example, have you ever once spoken to a person in passing who might have once played a videogame? Perfect! Now you can claim to be someone who has "experience in dealing with the core interactive software demographic." All it takes is half an hour reading the Columbine Wikipedia page to qualify as a "school shooting and gun crime researcher." It's easy when you know how to spin.

If you don't quite yet feel legitimate enough, you could always join an effectively powerless organization that has an official sounding name. Not only will you be taken more seriously, the undue sense of power is quite addictive.

7: It's always about the children:

Children are wonderful little tools that help you push forth any agenda you want. Don't like alcohol? Have it prohibited in the name of saving the children. Have a problem with wrestling? Say kids will die if they watch it. Building on the fear that parents feel as soon as they squirt a baby out into the world, you can easily shape society in your own image by claiming you're doing it for the kids. Nobody wants to be seen supporting anything that would harm children, which means you will become infallible -- if anybody disagrees with you, they are clearly in favor of children becoming hurt, and that probably means they're a pedophile. Instant discredit to Pedo McTouchyKids, and nothing but applause for your upstanding, morally impeccable self.

8: Circular logic works because circular logic works:

If you're serious about your anti-games stance, then you're going to have to shed that logic like it was a bra and you were Amy Winehouse. There can be no room for level-headed discussion here, because otherwise people might realize that everything you've been saying is bullshit, and that's not going to get anything banned.

Because a percentage of killers have played violent games before, violent games clearly lead to killers. It is this logic that The Sun newspaper uses to imply that everyone in Austria likes to lock their daughters up in basement dungeons and molest them. It really works, too! Once you've found a common thread that joins a murderer with a videogame, however flimsy, you now have an undeniable link to crime and gaming. Once those pro-gaming pixelante e-tards hear your stunning logic, they will be instantly silenced and everyone in the games industry shall be sent to prison, where they belong.

9: Hypocrisy, always hypocrisy:

Why does Matt Damon's mother find violent games a problem, but suffers no such issue with Damon's violent movies? Because Matt Damon is IN those movies, stupid! You don't need any valid reason to justify demonizing one medium while accepting another. Once you become comfortable in your hypocritical skin, you'll find that pursuing your agenda becomes ten times easier.

The most amazing thing is that your terrified, braying followers will NEVER question you. You can star in a movie in which you play a heartless killing machine who relentlessly quests to destroy Linda Hamilton, AND star in the game of the movie, yet STILL attack violence in games and those who blindly obey you won't bat an eyelid. How awesome is that? It must be how God feels, and since God's clearly on your side in this crusade, it all makes sense. Maybe you're Jesus. You should check.

Being a hypocrite is very important, because if you were a true, consistent moral fighter, then you'd strive to ban television and books as well, and you can't do that -- you LIKE television and books.

10: Never actually PLAY the game:

The most important, crucial rule of all. Never, under any circumstances, actually PLAY the game -- not because you think it'll turn you into a killer, you know that's bullshit -- but because it's easier to make stuff up if you've never seen it. I think that's how Scientology became so successful.

Why else does FOX News draft in psychologists who haven't played a game, and just tell them what's in it without showing them? Because if they saw it, they'd probably realize all the claims were pulled out of some hack's ass, and we can't have that, not when there's stuff to ban. If you've just been told a game is "like porn," then it makes all those little comments about "digital graphic sex" all the more easy to swallow.

Besides which, why should you have to play the game? After all, YOU have a life, not like these joystick junkies who spend all their free time playing Doom in 2008, on their ... what do they call them, Playing Stations and Nintenders? Whatever they are called, everyone knows that gaming is just for kids, despite the fact that so many adults play them. Actually, the high percentage of supposed 30-year olds playing games were probably just very tall, very hairy infants. It's ridiculous to suggest anyone over the age of ten plays a game that's rated 18.

And that's how it's done. I hope you enjoyed these rules, and now feel prepared to enjoy a rich new life dedicated to the systematic destruction of everything you do not know or understand. First games, then the gay people! That's how we roll.

Along with many of you, I've been playing quite a bit of Super Smash Bros. Brawl since it's been released. All in all, I'm impressed by the update more than I thought I would be. And the stiff platforming elements sorta grew on me.

But wow. Online play. That's not working too well, is it? Last night, I finally decided to give online a spin. I gave up after trying to join several games and waiting 5 to 10 minutes a pop for other players that never showed. Later, attacking with more resolve, I finally I got into one match—felt like a lottery winner—only to find that lag makes the hyperactive game completely unplayable. So I just wanted to run a quick poll to catch reader impressions of Wii's online services and see if I'm the only one having issues:

And you know what, the overwhelming and resouding response was....silence. No one had ever heard of a BarCamp for games. And so we at TheGuardian have decided to sort that out, with the assistance of Adrianand Dan Hon at Six to Start, Rachel Clarke at Bibrik and TheDaveGreenfrom GameCity (and NTK) - plus kind support from Sony (who're hostingthe event) and Nintendo.
Welcome to GameCamp- a free event, open to all, on Saturday 3 May in trendy East London.Keep reading for more information. And for goodness sake, record yourinterest at Upcoming!
WHAT IS GAMECAMP?
GameCamp is a free, public one-day event for people interested ingaming and play. The objective is simple: to talk informally withlike-minded people and get excited about stuff involving games of allkinds.
We've already confirmed some stellar attendees from across the gamesbiz - from founding fathers to revolutionaries to cogs in the machine.Expect a whole spectrum of games-related people to be there! Plus,Harmonix's Rock Band. Yes, Rock Band.
HOW GAMECAMP WORKS
GameCamp is a communal "unconference" run along the principles of BarCamp.
That means EVERYBODY is encouraged to join in and be ready to give a talk, take part in a discussion or run a session.
We let you decide what the order of the day is: in the morning, onceeveryone has registered, you'll get a chance to add your session to TheGrid - the editable conference schedule that's posted on a wall at thevenue. This cacophony of blu-tac and sheets of A4 paper will list allthe rooms and times that are available for the day, letting everyonesee at a glance which sessions are coming up, and decide on the onesthey're most interested in attending.
The sessions are arranged as half-hour blocks split across severalrooms, with 15 minute breaks between each period. We'll take a 45minute break for lunch at about 1.30pm and will convene at the end ofthe day to wrap things up.
Running a session doesn't mean you need to prepare a speech -remember, the day is meant to be informal and fun - but you should havea good idea of the subjects you are interested in. This is a chance totry things out, to try new ideas, NOT just to run through the samepresentation you've used before.
You might want to talk about something you've been working on, butwe don't necessarily need to know how great your latest game is. Infact, some of the best presentations at BarCamps have avoided pitchesaltogether. Like 'How To Make A World-Class Martini (with tastingsession)'. You might want to organise your session around the bestGuitar Hero techniques, your top Open Source Game picks, or your latesttheory on game design. We like people who are prepared to get stuck in,try new things and bring some fun to proceedings.
THE BASICS
What: One-day event about games and play
When: Saturday May 3, 11am - 5.30pm
Where: 15 Hanbury Street, London, E1 6QR
How: Bring your imagination and something you'd like to talk about
Why: Why not?
How many: There is room for 120 - but there are limited placesavailable. We're opening up the public registration on Monday 21stApril, so add an alarm to your calendar; we're allocating tickets on afirst-come-first-served basis!
Props to Chris Mac Morrison who designed the GameCamp 2008 logo.

Three Scottish stories of interest today.
The first arrived on my RSS doorstep yesterday - Games to be taught in Scottish Schools shouted the headline from MCV. The crux:

Scottish schoolchildren are to be taught the basics of video gamedesign as part of the country's new national curriculum ... the move isto designed to 'create the next generation of young programmers'.

Hey, it worked for the BBC with its Micro initiative in the early 1980s, and look at the thriving UK industry today.
The second story landed in my Twitter feed via PDA's Jemima Kiss: Mike Butcher writes, Scotland confirmed as UK's gaming hub as Realtime Worlds pulls $50m:

That's a lot for a games company. Admittedly Realtimehas an exclusive partnership with Microsoft Game Studios and its firsttitle, Crackdown for Xbox 360 in early 2007, sold about 1.4m copies.But the money looks likely to head towards it's online gamesdevelopment. Realtime Worlds already runs All Points Bulletin, amassively multiplayer online game. I can tell you right now, VCs arehighly interested in that space.

Money is pouring in north of the border - already home to the University of Abertay at Dundee's flagship games course and the Dare to be Digital game design competition.
So the third bit of news is actually a bit of a backhand plug.Jemima and I will be in Edinburgh to discuss these and other storiesnext Friday for a Scottish-based edition of The Guardian's Tech Weekly podcast (join the Facebook group!). We have a limited number of places for the Coffee Morning, so if you're interested in getting your penneth in, sign up for the event on Upcoming and come discuss.

10. SkyNET - 1996

SkyNET features an array of modern and futuristic weaponry.

SkyNET's multiplayer mode had vehicles and vast outdoor areas as well
as indoor close-quarters combat six years before Battlefield 1942 showed
up. What I really liked about it was that in multiplayer mode you could play
as a Terminator... how cool is that? I'd love to see what this game would look
like with a nice graphics update and some touches to incorporate modern gameplay
elements beyond its initial deathmatch and team deathmatch offering. The burned-out
post-nuclear apocalypse setting was cool too. Just imagine what a good development
house could do with this premise today with different classes of Terminators
and resistance fighters duking it out for what's left of a radioactive wasteland.

9. 4-D Boxing - 1991

4-D Boxing never did look very pretty, but it was still fun.

Way before EA's Fight Night series debuted the company released 4-D Boxing.
This fantastic game set out to simulate the fine art of boxing in a full 3D game
long before 3D accelerators were standard on PCs. Even way back in 1991 you could
create your own boxer (but he did look blocky), train him, and try to take him
all the way to the top. The game even had replays so you could watch and analyze
all of your fights. A modern version that kept the basic "virtual person" design
could make this a unique boxing game that looks original and stays true to the
sport it's based on.

8. Aces over Europe - 1990

The P-38 was the plane that made me fall in love with flight sims.

Nowadays there are very few good World War II fighter sims out there, and some,
like IL-2 Sturmovik don't really have much of a storyline to them. In Aces
over Europe there is a campaign mode that lets you work your way up through
the ranks and earn medals and promotions. The game is very approachable for newbies
and features a vast collection of authentic WWI-era fighters to pilot. If you
wanted to you could also fly for the other side. What I really liked was single
mission mode where you could pit yourself against a specific WWII fighter ace
to see how you'd fare. This was a great full-featured game that didn't beat you
over the head with uncompromising realism while still giving you a challenge
that didn't feel like an arcade game.

7. Wing Commander - 1990

The first Wing Commander let you play as yourself, later on
Mark Hamill took the role of the hero.

When I was in Junior High I helped the Confederation fight off the cat-like Kilrathi
in the Vega campaign. I was stationed aboard the Tiger's Claw along with a memorable
entourage of fellow flyboys. Till this day I still remember the wild antics of
Manic, the cool calmness of Iceman, and the fatherly advice given to me by Paladin.
I remember the first time I flew the bulky Scimitar and blowing away dozens of
pancake-shaped Kilrathi Dralthi's with my Rapier. To say I have fond memories
of the original Wing Commander from Origin Systems would be an understatement.
I'd love to return to the Tiger's Claw and take down a few more of those rotten
furballs. Better yet, I'd like to have my buddies join me and fly my wing...
or against me.

6. Wasteland - 1988

Life as a Ranger patrolling the wasteland of the future isn't easy,
but you do get to meet lots of mutants.

I'm a sucker for post-apocalyptic settings, and Wasteland is considered
by many to be the grand-daddy of them all. This role-playing game inspired the
likes of Fallout and was developed by Interplay back in the late 1980s.
It's not much to look at now, but the storyline had you and your band of buddies
exploring the wasteland left after a nuclear third world war. The storyline was
fantastic, featuring great characters and an array of crazy mutants and plenty
of weaponry with which to deal with them.

5. Alone in the Dark - 1992

In Alone in the Dark you can fight zombies with your bare fists,
but we wouldn't recommend it.

The Alone in the Dark series isn't doing so great nowadays, but the game that
started it all is pure brilliance. It's one of the few PC games that really scared
the heck out of me when I played it, thanks to the haunted mansion setting. What
really made Alone in the Dark different from other games was that firepower
wasn't the solution to all your problems. Many creatures required certain magical
artifacts to defeat; for example, a possessed suit of armor could only be dealt
with using a sword, and a haunted painting of an Indian could only be defeated
with a bow and arrow. There were even some creatures that were impossible to
kill so your only option was to run like the wind. I'd love to go back to Derceto
mansion and see what everything would be like with modern graphics and audio.
I'd just have to make sure I played it with the lights on.

4. Diablo - 1998

The deeper you go in Diablo the deadlier the demons get.

Nearly infinite replayability, fantastic loot to find, simple and yet surprisingly
addictive gameplay, these attributes have all helped to make the original Diablo a
game that's easy to pick up and incredibly hard to put down. In fact, if it didn't
run in such low resolution and look so dated, there'd probably still be people
playing it today. So why don't we take away those barriers, bring back Diablo,
dust it off, give it a new coat of paint and some more robust multiplayer features
and get everyone adventuring into deep underground dungeons all over again. I
know you spend the whole time just clicking your left mouse button, but for some
reason I just couldn't stop. A remastering of this game would have me doomed.

3. X-Wing and TIE Fighter - 1993/1994

Choosing how to route your ship's power is vital to staying alive in X-Wing.

You may think that having one space combat game is enough, but we don't. As great
as Wing Commander is, the X-Wing series tops it in the gameplay department.
The flight model for this smash hit from LucasArts is fantastic, with each X-Wing,
Y-Wing, and A-Wing feeling right. It got even better when TIE Fighter rolled
out to give us a taste of the dark side. I'd love to see this game retouched
with the same flight models and missions, only more ships, more eye candy, and
multiplayer support. Yes, I know X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter was released
in 1997, and a 3D-accelerated version of all three games came out as Star
Wars: X-Wing Trilogy in 2000, but I want more! And yes, I know I'm cheating
by putting two games here, but it's my list and I can cheat if I want.
2. Mechwarrior 2 - 1996

Personalizing your mech is one of the many draws of Mechwarrior
2.

If you think about it, Mechwarrior 2 is a bit like Gran Turismo only
with robots. You get your bot, you customize it, and you take it out for a spin.
The only difference is that instead of turbo chargers and intercoolers you're
adding on heat sinks and PPCs, and instead of racing, you're blowing stuff up. Mechwarrior
2 let you build a mech to suit your play style. If you wanted to blast at
people from far away, you'd load up with LRMs and long-range pulse lasers or
a gauss gun. If you preferred close combat, loads of SRMs, autocannons, and maybe
a flamethrower would be your weapons of choice. Part sim, part action game, Mechwarrior
2 is a game that'd be an amazing experience if it was updated.

1. Star Control II - 1992

You see that planet surrounded by the red shield? That's Earth and it's
up to you to free it.

Earth has been defeated and is now imprisoned behind a force field that envelopes
the entire planet. It's up to you and your powerful Precursor ship to build up
a ragtag alliance of friendly aliens and defeat evil Ur-Quan. Part action game,
part role-playing game, Star Control II gave you an entire galaxy to
explore, numerous alien civilizations to make contact with, and countless planets
to explore. As you meet new races you'll have to learn their quirks, likes, and
dislikes and convince them to join you in the fight to free the galaxy from oppression.
Each of these races offered unique ships and technology for you to use and a
storyline was both engaging and surprisingly funny. If anyone remakes this, we'd
want them to keep all the dialogue and stick to the original storyline because
it's as close to perfect as you can get, just pretty the game up and let it run
on modern systems and we're good to go.