Picked up GTA San Andreas today like tons of other videogamers. I’ve been waiting for this game for quite some time. Pundits are predicting this could be the best-selling videogame of all time and after a mere 30 minutes of playtime before our kids ripped the controller from me, I’m certainly impressed thus far. Warning to parents of younger children, the language is certainly adult-oriented with lots of f-bombs.


 
Check out the cool moon! Here’s more choice Grand Theft Auto San Andreas screenshots:


ouch!

mmm, pizza anyone?




Jack the ripper! There are 67 total GTA: San Andreas screenshots in the slideshow so far.

Just heard about this on the Jim Rome radio show that D&D is now 30 years old, concordmonitor.com:

Dungeons & Dragons players gathered in game stores around the country yesterday [Saturday 10/16/2004] to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the grandfather of fantasy role-playing games - a pop culture phenomenon that has influenced myriad video games, books and movies.

Though I haven’t played in a long time, in honor of this anniversary I (briefly) broke out the dice and here’s the manuals …



… that we bought awhile back from the local Wizards of the Coast in the mall, which has since gone out of business. I’ll admit it, I was a D&D geek when growing up. I got the manuals to share with my children and our middle son, Sean, really liked D&D. Wish I had more time to check into this and see where it has gone over the years as far as integration with online gaming. I’m thinking games like Everquest have eaten the D&D lunch.

If Microsoft really wants to move XBox hardware they should emulate what Nintendo did with their Gamecube and go sub $100 pricing, but they have a few other ideas.

Microsoft announced on Friday a new holiday Xbox package that essentially gives buyers two free sports games and a trial subscription to the Xbox Live online gaming service. The bundle, available starting Oct. 31, will add Electronic Arts’ “NCAA Football 2005″ and “Top Spin” tennis game, plus two months of Xbox Live service, for the same $150 Microsoft now charges for the standalone Xbox.

The XBox has some really cool looking games, especially on a High Definition TV, but one of the problems is that not a lot of people have HDTVs. More the problem isn’t cool-looking games, it’s the shortage of fun games. We’ll see what happens with Halo 2.

Not really all that surprising, though I can imagine the severe disappointment from the hardworking Halo 2 developers at bungie.net over the Halo 2 leak:

Last night a pirated copy of Halo 2 was released onto the internet. Needless to say we think this really sucks. Aside from years of hard work being stolen from us, we’ve gone to great lengths to ensure that the details of the Halo 2 campaign remain a mystery for players to experience for themselves on November 9th. Microsoft is currently engaged in a full scale investigation and to those foolish enough to partake in this piracy, you will soon witness the firepower of this fully operational battle station.

The official Halo 2 release date is planned for November 9. Slashdot is all over this leak as well citing the story from Gamespot. Word to the wise: steer very, very clear of trying to hunt down this illegal copy, P2P or otherwise. My wife beta tested Halo 2 at Microsoft and I’ll wait until on or after the official release on November 9th to tell you what I know about that experience. I thought her experience – what little she was willing to tell me and what I actually saw when I took her to Redmond and then picked her up when the session was done – was pretty interesting actually.

I tried playing online poker a couple times and overall it hasn’t been a very pleasant experience. One time I was accused by one aggressive player (I know, I know it’s only one jerk) of being in collusion with another player when the other player was a complete stranger. It soured my experience for playing online poker in general – and this wasn’t even for any real money, it was a for fun-only game. Now, apparently bots are becoming at least a minor concern to the online poker industry. MSNBC:

The solution, in the case of the Vex Bot, was adding a layer of artificial intelligence over its ability to calculate probabilities. It will show you things that no human player has ever shown you before, Billings said of the latest incarnation of the bot, which also has the ability to model its opponent’s behavior. One of the biggest advantages that programs have is that they have no fear, no shame. Humans can be intimidated. They will back off in the face of a very aggressive player. A bot will not. It has no compunction about doing whatever it will take to win. It will raise you with any two cards if it thinks that it has a very slight advantage based on your history. And it can induce a lot of anger and emotional upset.”

Somehow this sounds like something that Isaac Asimov might have written. Maybe this would have been a better plot for I, Robot. Perhaps a sequel: Diehard Bots with a Vengeance!

Viacom, who recently sued Paramount over a lack of Star Trek titles to promote has cut a deal with Perpetual Entertainment to make a Trek Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG). Here’s the official press release:

The license encompasses all live-action motion pictures and television series including, Star Trek: The Original Series, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager, and Star Trek: Enterprise. “The scope of the content license is extraordinary for a game of this kind, giving us the opportunity to immerse fans and players in the incredibly rich, diverse and exciting universe of Star Trek,” said Joe Keene, CEO of Perpetual Entertainment.

I originally saw this story reported at Slashdot this morning. This game could be really cool or could go over like the Star Wars MMORPG (not good). We’ll have to wait and see.

You know you are something special when in your fourth season in the Major Leagues, your team almost 30 games out of first and eliminated from contention and the game is on the line and you rip a hit and the opposing crowd gives you a standing ovation. That’s what happened last night in Chicago in the 9th inning for Ichiro Suzuki, Mariners all star right fielder, who continues to hit is way into history. Seattle Times:

When his fifth hit came off rookie Jeff Bajenaru in the ninth, Ichiro drew a standing ovation from the 24,191 in attendance. “I don’t have any connections to Chicago,” Ichiro said. “I really didn’t know what to do.”

This entry is probably more applicable for our sports and gambling blog but I just had to say it: Ichiro is freaking incredible. He is ripping off hits like he’s in batting practice. With his 5 for 5 last night, he now has 223 hits. George Sisler who owns the record 257 hits in one season that Ichiro is chasing, “only” had 216 at this time in the season.

There’s no doubt in my mind that Ichiro is going to break Sisler’s record which hasn’t been bested since 1920, and it appears that Ichiro might just shatter it. I was telling my wife Kara that we should try and get tickets to a game for the kids before the tickets are all gone. This could very well be the only chance in their lifetime to see this record broken. Then again, Ichiro might come out next year and chase 300 hits!

I think Ichiro has an outside shot at hitting .400 this year too, as he is hitting .379 right now. That’s something else that hasn’t been done for awhile and we’ll hear more about it if he gets into the high 380s or low 390s with 10 or more games to go. Amazing that he can go 5 for 5 and only raise his batting average five points. I heard one of the announcers say he had to hit something like .525 the rest of the season to eclipse the .400 mark … wouldn’t that be amazing if he breaks Sisler’s record and hits .400? One of those two (the hits record) seems like a lock.

And just to end on a humorous note, check out the prediction I made back at the beginning of the season for wins for the Mariners:

Yeah, right, they are going to win 85-89 games … could I have been any more wrong back then?

I’m ready to make my prediction that this year the Seattle Mariners are going to win 85 games. That’s barely over 500 baseball. I sure hope I’m wrong.

Yup, I sure was wrong! LOL Today they will likely lose game #85 (they have a chance to lose 100 games for the season) and Ichiro will probably tack on another 2 or 3 hits. Maybe he’ll go back to back 5 for 5. Go Ichiro!

I’ve been developing on an online tournament video poker game that tonight is making its first public release debut at an adult webmaster community: Adult Netsurprise [screenshots]. ANS is going to utilyze this game to supplement their radio show every Thursday night at 6pm PST / 9pm EST. The larger plan is to be able to allow entertainment only (no real gambling) video poker tournaments branded for other websites / sponsors. This would be an entertaining supplement for virtual parties and other online events. The client software is written to run on the .NET Framework 1.1 for Windows.

Sponsors could have their own custom cardbacks and even custom client interfaces. Interested webmasters and sponsors should contact me (TDavid) for details and pricing about hosting and/or sponsoring an online Video Poker tournaments for your website or blog. An official public release for other websites with plans will be announced via TD Casino but those who are interested in doing something sooner should get in touch with me. The game is quite configurable (by tournament sponsors), easy to understand and fun to play.

Spock might argue that this is logical. gamesindustry.biz:

Apparently Activision is upset that since the signing of a 1998 agreement for the rights to videogame development, Viacom has only produced one Star Trek film and has taken two popular television series off-air, leaving just one show with weak ratings in their stead.

Nemesis wasn’t exactly a dynamo and from what I’ve seen of Enterprise — yech. I wonder if this game license allows for retroactive titles because there could be promise in the original Star Trek library. Perhaps a videogame based on the episode, Trouble with Tribbles. Stop the Tribbles from multiplying!

If you have a copy of NFL fever, consider that a collector’s item because Microsoft sports is no more.

Microsoft has closed the division that created mainstream-sports games for its Xbox console, laying off 76 employees as a result, a company representative confirmed Friday.

In some ways this is a good move because as the article states there are strong franchises for every sports title to compete against. Also, I’ve read stories about XBox despite its surge in sales is still hemorraging cash. I hope they get it together because I like a few (not a lot, a few) XBox games and have done some playtesting up there at Redmond.