A global injustice

Posted in football, things of all time on January 12th, 2011 by RevStu

This frankly incredible piece of clearly deliberate skill from Matty Burrows of Glentoran, astonishingly, did NOT win the World Goal Of The Year 2010 prize at the FIFA Ballon d'Or awards ceremony on Monday night:

When I explained this startling fact to a popular cultural commentator, his instant and heartfelt response was "What's that all about, eh?"

(In fairness, he also said that when I asked him how many sugars he wanted in his tea, and who the current President of the USA was.)

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Don’t miss this one

Posted in free stuff, games, iOS on January 12th, 2011 by RevStu

It's the finest action puzzler I've yet seen for the iThings, and it's free today.

It's Push Panic! I'd say more, but I have to go and play it again right now. Trust me, 30 seconds in you'll know what I'm talking 'bout Willis.

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Strangling your own future

Posted in analysis, media on January 10th, 2011 by RevStu

It's a fascinating time for the media right now. As newspaper circulations plummet, everyone's getting very excited about the potential of devices like the iPad and the Kindle to be the virtual newsstands of the future.

At the same time, of course, media organisations like News International are experimenting with hiding their web content behind a paywall to see if it's possible to get people to pay for journalism again. (Something this reporter has an obvious vested interest in.)

What a shame, then, that the last great flame of hope represented by the new technology risks being snuffed out by good old-fashioned corporate greed.

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3DS launch games announced. Try to stay awake.

Posted in analysis, games on January 8th, 2011 by RevStu

Nintendogs+Cats, Winning Eleven Soccer 3D, Super Street Fighter IV 3D Edition, Samurai Warriors Chronicle, Puzzle Bobble 3D, Ridge Racer 3D, Battle Of The Giants: Dinosaurs 3D, Professor Layton: Mask Of Miracles.

(Bold entries are purely for the sake of readability.)

According to Nintendo, the console's battery will last between three and eight hours (ie three hours), and will take three-and-a-half hours to fully charge. In other words, battery life will be shorter than the iPhone 4 and 4th-gen iPod Touch, the latter of which will be selling for about the same price.

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A radical new direction for Jeff Minter

Posted in games, iOS, iPad on January 8th, 2011 by RevStu

Which is to say that his new game – which marks Llamasoft's debut on the iPod/iPhone/iPad – rips off Asteroids (with a little bit of Space Wars) rather than Defender, Centipede or Tempest! ZOMG!

And in another unexpected development, the game is neither astonishingly brilliant (Tempest 2000, Gridrunner++, Space Giraffe) nor wincingly terrible (Defender 2000, Tempest 3000, Gridrunner Revolution). Instead, it's that rarest of Minter beasts, "fairly good-ish". Gosh.

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The real value of videogames

Posted in analysis, games on January 7th, 2011 by RevStu

WoSblog viewers won't need reminding that this reporter has spent quite a significant chunk of his professional career (20 years this month, anniversary fans!) suggesting that the price of videogames is artificially high.

Despite the industry's endless red-herring protests about development costs, piracy and whatever, there isn't – and never has been – any genuine reason for new games to cost £40, £50 and more.

With videogames, as with anything else, the best guide to the true value of something is how well it holds that value, particularly in terms of day-one depreciation. And luckily for us, the venerable consumer publication Which? has just published the results of some research it's done into the subject. You're not going to be very surprised.

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Edge edge edge edge edge

Posted in edge, free stuff, games, iOS, iPad on January 4th, 2011 by RevStu

Poor old Tim Langdell, eh? Anyway, to celebrate the ending of the beard-faced idiot's decade of spurious legal bullying, EA have rather kindly made the modestly splendid Mirror's Edge free today.

Basically a rather neato old-skool platformer with ultra-pretty graphics, the game normally costs £2.99 on iPhone/iPod and £5.99 on iPad, but for lucky European gamers (and some other territories too, but NOT the USA) those prices have been reduced by £2.99 and £5.99 respectively.

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The end of the beginning

Posted in navel-gazing on January 3rd, 2011 by RevStu

So it's the last day of 2010 (yes it is – the new year doesn't really start until the holidays are over), and more importantly the end of the thrilling first year of WoSblog. It must, then, be time for a brief moment of reflection.

HA HA DO YOU SEE WHAT WE DID THERE?

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WoSblog Game Of The Year 2011

Posted in free stuff, games, iOS on January 2nd, 2011 by RevStu

(So far, obviously.)

I Must Run! (currently free for some reason) isn't actually a sequel to Canabalt, but it might as well be. It takes the gameplay of the original and expands on it without overloading it with new features, and it's a heap o'fun.

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