Pre-Cataclysm Fun in WoW

For a while during the last month or so, Blizzard has slowly been adding little evens to World of Warcraft in anticipation of the game's next expansion, Cataclysm. About a week ago, the last, and biggest update occurred with the actual cataclysm taking place, thus revamping the old world content on the continents of Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms. I've been spending quite a bit of time checking the stuff out both on the Horde and Alliance sides, and it's proven to be a ton of fun.

For the Alliance, I played as a dwarf paladin, and spent my time going from Red Ridge Mountains, to Duskwood, then Wetlands, Arathi Highlands, the Hinterlands, and the Western Plaguelands. The quests now are soooo much better laid out. I could absolutely steamroll through the levels hoping from one quest node to the next without needing to run back and forth very much at all. So far, my favorite quests have had to do with a rookie druid with the Cenarian Circle, a troll named Zen'kiki. His quests are hilarious, as he's trying so hard to be a druid, but keeps on making mistakes (by the end of the chain, he does find his niche though). There's also a pretty fun Rambo homage in Red Ridge, but I still like Zen'kiki better.

Horde-side, I haven't had as much time to play yet, but I'm working on a troll druid of my own at the moment. What I have noticed is that Durotar looks a lot better than it did before with it being half flooded now, and areas showing signs of vegetation and wildlife starting to take hold. The area looks a lot more alive compared to before with the desolate, rocky landscape. Also, there is a lot more new music in the Horde zones from what I've seen, which all comes to a head when entering the new, much more heavily fortified Orgrimmar.

Regardless of whether playing Horde or Alliance, the new music is probably my favorite improvement to the game. The old tracks were so boring, and lifeless compared to what is being used now. It's not just that tunes have been redone with actual symphony orchestras, but that the melodies are much more pronounced now. I really didn't like the minimalist music of old, and much prefer what I'm hearing now.

In any case, these changes in the old world are starting to get me really excited for next week when the expansion finally comes out. Can't wait!

Gunstar Heroes on iPhone

One of my favorite Genesis games ever is now available on the iPhone: Treasure's run-and-gun action title, Gunstar Heroes. It's pretty much an exact port of the original game, with a Bluetooth multi-player option tossed in. About the only problem I can see the game running into is that the button placement may obscure some of what is going on while playing, which could be an issue given how fast things happen in the game, and how many enemies come at you then.

The game's pretty cheap, though, at $2.99, so it may still be something worth looking into for the classic gamers out there looking for a new title to futz around on their iPhone with.

Houston to Have Massive Car Charging Network

I'm a big fan of green technology, so I was quite pleased to hear that Houston plans on having the largest car charging network in the US. It's particularly interesting to hear since I've always looked at Texas as being a big oil state, and not so much the land of electric cars. The times are a-changing, though, it would seem.

This is being done by a company called NRG Energy, who plan to have 150 charging stations available within a 25 mile radius in Houston, most of which will be at common public areas like supermarkets, shopping malls, and , forth. The company will be asking customers who use the service to pay $89 per month which will also include the installation fee for a charger in their homes (where most charging usually takes place for an electric car). The company is plunking down $10 million to get the ball rolling on this project, and doesn't expect to make a profit in the early going, but does hope that the presence of such charging stations around Houston will get people more interested in electric cars.

My question is how many cars are actually available to the public en masse that could take advantage of these stations? There are plenty of hybrids out there, but full-on electric cars are either mostly still in development, or are small, relatively short range vehicles. For these chargers to really take off, we'll likely need to see a lot more cars become available that can use them. Hopefully these stations going up will also entice manufacturers to use Houston as a test center for future electric cars that they may want to release since there would already be a network of chargers in place.

Wi-Fi Makes Trees Sick?

A new study coming out of the Netherlands suggests that radiation given off by wi-fi is causing trees to becoming ill forming strange growths, as well as bleeding and fissures in the bark. This is apparently present in trees in most cities, while trees out in the wilderness don't have this problem at all. The researchers believe that besides wi-fi, mobile phone networks and ultra fine particles from vehicles are what is causing this. While worrisome, this does appear to still be early research into the matter, and the scientists involved with it emphasize that they still have a lot more work to do to finalize their results.

Nonetheless, it does raise the question of how safe all of these radio waves are flying through the air all around us. If there's the possibility that these things are making trees sick, what sort of affect could they be having on us, or any other living thing for that matter. Something to think about, I suppose.

Happy 20th Birthday Super Famicom

On November 21, 1990, Nintendo released its second videogame console in Japan, the Super Famicom. It's been 20 years since that day. Boy does time fly! While the system was the last of the three 16-bit consoles that I bought (got the TurboGrafx-16 first, then a Sega Genesis,and finally an SNES), Nintendo's console was the one that I spent the most time with. It was a hotbed for RPGs during its time, with Final Fantasy, Lufia, Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana, Breath of Fire, and a slew of others. As such, my time was quite well spent with this console.

This was also a time when fanboy-ism really started to show itself, as there was stiffer competition between Sega and Nintendo for console supremacy. Sure there was a bit of back and forth between NES and Master System owners, but things really heated up when the Genesis and SNES came out. I still remember Sega's adverts that emphasized the sheer size of the Genesis' games library compared to the SNES, and the "Sega Does What Nintendon't" campaign. Meanwhile, Nintendo put more emphasis on the technical abilities of the SNES. In time, it also found itself with quite a robust library of games, so Sega's argument that it had more games became a moot point.

One thing that I had found interesting about the SNES' reign was that despite Nintendo loosening up its control on who could make games for its console, and under what conditions, some companies still chose to develop exclusively for the system. Squaresoft was a perfect example of this, as they steadfastly stuck with the SNES, bringing it a ton of high-quality RPGs (many of which, sadly, never saw a release outside of Japan). Square kept the Final Fantasy on the SNES, and brought a bunch of new games to it as well like Live-A-Live, Romancing Saga, Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana, Front Mission, and Super Mario RPG. These were very good games, and I suspect many were instrumental in securing the SNES as the top 16-bit console. There were also companies that obviously favored the SNES over the Genesis, releasing the majority of their games for Nintendo's console, and bringing out only a few games for Sega's. Companies like Capcom, Konami, and Enix come to mind in regard to this.

About the only thing that ever irked me about the system was that when the SNES came out in North America it looked so unbelievably ugly in comparison to the Super Famicom. While the SFC was slick, and curvy, the SNES was a blocky, clunky abomination by comparison. Thankfully the games were fantastic, which helped me to overlook the fact that the system was such an eyesore.

The 16-bit era was probably the most formative age in videogame history for me growing up, and the SNES played a big part in that, so looking back on the 20 years that the console has been around brings back a lot of happy memories. With that, Happy Birthday Super Famicom! ^_^

Cell Phone Jammers in Cars?

If there is one thing that I really hate, its people driving while trying to use their cell phones. Being it yacking away, or texting, both take their focus off of the road, and has lead to countless accidents. Now it looks like the Obama administration are looking at the possibility of having cars equipped with jamming devices in the future so that people simply can't use their cell phones while driving.

I'm sure some people will come out whining that it also punishes passengers in the car since they won't be able to use their phones either, and if someone needs to call 911 they won't be able to as long as the jammer is in operation, but, unfortunately, these people who insist on using their phones while driving have ruined it all for the rest of us (though I suspect any jammers would have an exception built in for calling 911). We've had over a decade to try and get these morons to stop fiddling with their phones, and keep their eyes on the road, yet they refuse to listen. Now the choice may be made for them, so, if anyone is upset about this, get mad at the drivers, not the administration who have tried all other avenues with little success.

Laser Cats!

Great mural or greatest mural? The folks at Aggressive Panhandler stumbled across this work of art that street painters put on the boarded up Harding Theater in San Francisco. If the world ever met such an adorable fate, I think I'd be okay with that.

Naughty Update for Agarest War 2

Not that the game was any sort of bastion for all that is good and pure in the world to begin with, but Compile Heart will be releasing a patch in Japan for Record of Agarest War 2 that takes advantage of the PlayStation Move controller that will be used during the massage and bath house mini-games. Andria Sang also reports that there are also some other updates in the patch to do with CG galleries and the like for players to ogle.

I can only see this as being the start of a weird, awkward, "OMG, eroge!" trend allowing gamers with raging hormones to take their game to a new level when interacting with submissive, scantily clad anime heroines in their video games. And to think, the game only just came out and they're already thinking of updates for it such as this!

New Planet Discovered from Another Galaxy

The science community is all a-buzz with the announcement that a new planet has been discovered in another galaxy. Scientists have been able to discover planets in our own galaxy, but going further than that has been beyond our abilities. With that, this new discovery comes with a bit of a caveat, as the planet that has been discovered is now part of the Milky Way, on the very fringes of it, but was originally part of an independent dwarf galaxy that was absorbed by our own billions of years ago.

There's plenty of data to pour over in regards to this new planet, and like many discoveries, it will make scientists re-evaluate some of what they thought they knew about the universe. In any case, it is pretty neat to find something like this, and makes me wonder how much more scientists will be able to look beyond our own galaxy for planets as our technology improves, allowing us to see farther.

Bizarre Creations to be Closed?

Well, this news just made me one sad panda, but it sounds like Activision may want to shut down Bizarre Creations. I've always been a fan of their racing games, right from Metropolis Street Racing, through to Project Gotham, and more recently with Blur.

Unfortunately, it sounds like Activision isn't too happy with how Blur or their James Bond game have turned out, and is looking to unload the studio. As such, the Kotaku is reporting that Bizarre Creations has given its staff three months notice of the place possibly being shut down.

It's a situation that sucks for those who may lose their jobs, and also for fans of racing games. Entries into the genre have been dwindling compared to years past, so to see Bizarre disappear would exaserbate this even more. I'd like to hope that another publisher may be willing to pick them up though, if for no other reason than to keep pumping out solid racers, and veer away from action titles a la Bond. Hopefully someone will step in and save the day here.

Steampunk Batman

Super Punch has spotted another selection of illustrations bringing a different take on a popular series. This time it's a steampunk version of Batman. I like how a lot of the illustrations incorporate a classic movie poster feel to them as well, bringing a more retro flair.