PC
9 Podcasts for 2009
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Although these all like to the iTunes Store, they shouldn’t be hard at all to find them on other Podcasting services by entering the same name.
Scene Unseen Movie Reviews is a new podcast that offers a unique spin on the movie review process. The catch? Every week one of our reviews sees a new release… the other does not. Also featured - “Letterboxing” banter, DVD picks and special guest appearances from professionals in the film industry.
Vancouver’s top comedy podcast? Hosted by Graham Clark and Dave Shmka, with weekly guests. Hilarious weekly guests? Yup.
EPIC FU is what happens when tech and culture get it on. It’s your weekly geek-out to the coolest art, tech, and music from the online and offline world. Subscribe to get a fresh new episode each week!
Mars Hill Church: Mark Driscoll -
Mars Hill Church in Seattle lives, breathes and is generally OCD about Jesus. Pastor Mark Driscoll is the lead preaching pastor for Mars Hill and regularly distribures video content via this channel, including sermons, event teaching and the occasional one-off video created for our internet audience. You can find more content like this by visiting our web site at www.marshillchurch.org
By Tech Fans, For Tech Fan! Product reviews, tech tips, viewer questions, gaming and great guests, all brought to you by Robert Heron and the DL.TV crew. We go live every Thursday, then we encode and make available for download.
Diggnation is a weekly tech/ web culture show based on the top digg.com social bookmarking news stories.
The Totally Rad Show is the summer blockbuster of geek news shows. Every week, hosts Alex Albrecht, Dan Trachtenberg and Jeff Cannata rip into the world of movies, video games, tv, comics, and more and pull out what’s rad.
Embrace digital technology. Join the Tekzilla cew and make your tech work better for you. Or you can go live in the woods with an axe. Every Saturday, Patrick Norton and Veronica Belont deliver product reviews, computer help, tech tips on everything from Ipod to camcorders, HD to the Internet, plus do it yourself projects.
The Hour with George Stroumboulopolous
Want a different look at the news? Watch to The Hour. The Hour isnt your average newscast, its more lik hanging out with someone whos really interested in the world. The Hour - a current affairs show hosted by George Stroumnoulopoulos. Watch new video clipos every weekday.
The Runes, the are a changin’
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I remember that time, like days of lore. To be honest, I do not even recall signing up for it, but well blogged was the day I received my invitation to round 3 of the World of Warcraft closed beta - right before Hunters and mounts were introduced, and the level cap was in the 30s.
I dare not claim my excitement had nothing to do with the “closed beta” portion of the game at the time, regardless, fun was had. But by round 4 I had totally forgotten about the game. After my near-half-year stay at the hospital, I was excited again (possibly an effect of amnesia?) for the land of Azeroth. It took me a few weeks of hard-grinding for me to realize that paying for 6 months, up front, was a disastrous waste of money. And as cheap as it may make me sound, I hated how paying that monthly fee gave me the constant feeling I was wasting money not playing it, feeling obliged to get bored somewhere else.
Guild Wars just didn’t work, some account problem.
That was many moons ago, many a ‘coons age, if you will. I have seen the rise, the fall and the lack of either from various MMORPGs, but the MMO market seems not one that is easily shifted (considering the hours and money invested into their level 70 Gnome with a Paladin’s mount). Lord of the Rings, a beta I was invited to, but didn’t bother too, seems to have taken the MMO fanbase community that isn’t playing WoW - no doubt helped by the license backing it. But that was really it. Star Trek and Stargate MMOs are in the works, but save for the respective television shows, I could not care much less.
It was an article on Kotaku a while ago. It brings something never before seen in the MMO genre: something never before seen in the MMO genre. And that was a colon there for a reason. MMOs have been a less released form of the FPS genre lately, especially the plethora of WWII ones - the same damn thing. Rune’s actually addresses some of my qualms over the genre, be it the fact that only high-level players’ outfits match (its not gay, okay?) and being stuck in a single character-class. When I read that alone, I was interested, the Rune system sounded really interesting, as well did the multi-class one - I hated being stuck with one style of game play, especially for how long MMO accounts last.
But then I read how Runes will bring a better social aspect to the game. Be it a personal living-space, a la Fable; Server wars and Guild wars; Dynamic Dungeons; as well as the apparent ‘dress dummy’;
By far the neatest function of player housing in Runes of Magic is the dress dummy. Place it in your home, equip it with a set of armor, and then with the click of a button you can swap out your equipment with what the dummy is wearing. Perfect for those who consistently change primary classes, as well as anyone who has ever played a WoW druid. You can set up as many dummies as you need, and the same functionality works with wall-mounted weapon sets.
— Mike Fahey @ Kotaku
Oh, and it’s damn free. Although it makes me wonder how they plan on making money, be that as it may, its still damn free.
And on the 7th day, God played Spore
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I have hopefully come accross, or at least sometimes mentioned, my religious backgrounds. I am a Christian. I say this only because of the character of which this article will be about, and his apparently militant faith.
A few months ago, I had one heck of a lot of fun with the Spore Creature Creator. It is more addicted and incredibly fun as a bag of mables being held by a bucket of monkeys that stacked together, a la Construction, building another monkey. Dont ask how, but I know how fun both are. I have my ways.
Unless you are named Van Winkle, in that case, you are excused from not knowing of the ever-infamous Jack Thompson issue. He was a fourth-rate lawyer that constantly tried to bring down companies like Rockstar for their production of apparent murder simulators. Their relation? Neither seem to have actually played either of their respective videogames.
Will Wright, in his genius, pioneered the ‘God-sim’ genre. Sim City still has a massive following. For a long time, The Sims (and its multiple sequels and expansion packs) even held the record for best selling video game ever. Black and White, not as revolutionary, was still a greatly received game and helped anchor his foot into this new genre of his.
Regardless, this came as a surprise to me. As is any written text, the Bible is up for numerous amounts of interpretation (and why so many denominations) and thusly the Genesis story has been talked about for ages. The, as of now unnamed, ‘Anti-Spore’ militant, has been quoting the Bible and trying to call EA and Will Wright evil.
I think it is entirely possible that God created civilizations on other planets. But because Will Wright has brainwashed Frank Drake into thinking that life in the universe gave rise to “super humans” on other planets that are better than us.
It is people like this that make me embarassed to be a Christian. Had she not pulled another Jack Thompson by actually playing the game she would see how this game has been appropriately dubbed a God-sim. Religious views aside, athiestic, agnostic or not - if God created the world, would this not be the best way for it to be done? This game does not, in any way, try to unmount God in his throne at all. You aren’t denying God, you are playing God, a pre-human God who is just having some fun.
In defense of Anti-Spore, she is seeing some of the light, she is just not noticing it on herself;
Someone informed me that an Attorney, Mr. Jack Thompson may be able to help me. As he has had much success in raising awareness about problem video games.
Does anyone know how I can get in touch with him?
Turns out that Jack Thompson is a terrible lawyer.
People are emailing me so much stuff, I don’t know which people are being sincere and which are not.For example, I got a message from the supposed mayor of McCamish, KS. Claiming that he will make sure the game is kept out of their store. I have no way to verify the info, though.
Far too often do I see Christian groups and individuals in a chronic poise to defend themselves. I see where this is coming, I understand it. But really, quit trying to be so damned ignorant. You are making us all look like Jack Thompson-kin.
EDIT: Be it a Rick Roll or not, all the points I made in this thread are applicable. As said in the linked Destructoid page, “
Spore = Creationism ^ Down Syndrome
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Critics claim that the release of the Spore Creature Creator is nothing more than an easy cash-grab. After a few hours playing as the most retarded god since Black & White, I have come a conclusion: even if the full version of Spore were released, only % 0.002 of the entire gaming population would have gotten any further. It is just retardededly fun. You will laugh so much from the fun you are having, people will actually assume you have a mental handicap. They released this part of the game merely to let the massive influx of YouTube videos and models of sexually inspired creatures in an effort to spread out the tension on our precious internetz — and yes, I said YouTube.
Initially I followed Spore as intently as Michael Jackson did the t-shirt:skin ratio of Dakota Fanning. But dudes, it debuted in E3 2006, and it has been a long, long while since then. 
Some people thought Spore might have lost some steam when its release was bumped last summer (I believe that was when). Judging, however, by the ~900,000 custom creatures made since release (June 17, 2008), this is not the case. So at least to me, the implementation of YouTube was a total, awesome and surprising surprise. The community aspect of Spore insisted on this type of feature, after all.
The Creature Creator, which is only one portion of the final game, has three parts to its window. The “building” section, the “testing” section and the “skinning” section. The middle one, the testing ground actually has YouTube implemented into it. The testing ground is used to test out your creature, see how he reacts to certain commands, how he walks around and how funny his (or her) babies look like. Right in the bottom left are two buttons, one for taking photos and the other for video taping. You can then take videos of your creature dancing around and YouTube it, showing off your creative prowess to the lesser beings on the internetz. The bottom of the screen is where you name, describe and tag your creature — and then where you upload to the Sporepedia, allowing other players to bring them into their worlds. Given the chance that someone extincts your creature, you are messaged thusly, giving you the option to insult them in the forums with mad caps-lock-stylez.
There is some strategy to the creating, as each item you use adds a certain amount of points to various parts of a creature, be it the ability to actually see, how powerful their charge attacks are and how fast they are. But Maxis seems to have taken into account the fact that no one will pay much heed to that aspect of the building, and lets us throw on whatever we want. The only problem with this game is convincing your little sister that your creature does not need three mouths inside one, even if you secretly agree.
If you do not mind the cartoon look to the game — buy it.
If you do mind — buy it.
If you do not buy it regardless – get off my internetz.
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