Valve’s Portal Puzzle So Far: The Files Recovered From Aperture Science [Valve]

Yesterday, Valve issued an update to its 2007 first-person puzzle game Portal, adding exactly one new Steam achievement and 26 audio transmissions that players could listen to via in-game radios. So started an impressive puzzle. Instead of listening to those transmissions in-game, members of various web forums, including the Steam , Facepunch and Something Awful forums —who we credit with the following discoveries—accessed them through more standard file system digging. Some were easily identifiable Morse Code recordings while the majority were SSTV (or slow-scan television) encoded transmissions. The Morse code audio files included the following information. 1. interior transmission active external data line active message digest active 5. 9e107d9d372bb6821bd91d3542a419d6 12. system data dump active user backup active password backup active 17. beep beeeep beep beep beeeep beeeep beeeep beep beeeep beep beep File 5 is a doubly encoded, the MD5 encrypted string “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.” File 17 was Morse Code for Morse Code for “LOL.” Good times. The remaining sound files were translated from audio to a series of 22 images, which had the appearance of stills from security cameras installed at Aperture Science, the setting of the original Portal. Many of those images contained shots of numbers and letters from keyboards, chalkboards and whiteboards, as well as the odd equation or formula, requiring the mob of puzzle solvers to tap into their calculus and engineering backgrounds. Click for super huge size The mob eventually put those characters together to form the string 9459C6CAC8C203B8128B7CC63068D4FD which itself was an encoded phone number for a Bulletin Board Service. That meant dusting off a few modems, dialing up Valve’s BBS, logging in and letting a mix of ASCII art and text files stream. That text dump may offer some of our first low-fidelity peeks at the next Portal and gives us a bit of insight into Aperture Science founder Cave Johnson. First, the artwork, which contains (here’s the word again) encoded visuals that may be familiar to the Portal player. In the above image, we get a peek at an ASCII version of GlaDOS, a few shots of the research facility and what appears to be two robots holding hands. There’s also a confidential document detailing “Low Risk” Human Resource Acquisitions, including hobos, orphans, psychiatric patients and senior citizens. The above features another peek at GlaDOS, a trio of diagrams and a heart shaped “anomalous emotional response” detection warning. Finally, two recognizable Portal items, GlaDOS (again) and a pair of automated turrets, among other things, plus a few memorandums from Aperture Science founder Cave Johnson. CJohnson writes: “…remind you that APerture Science is built on three pillars. Pillar one: Science without results is just witchcraft. Pillar two: Get results or you’re fired. Pillar three: if you suspect a coworker of bin’ a witch, report them immediately. I cannot stress that enough. Witchcraft will not be tolerated.” “A lot of you have been raising concerns about the so-called “dangers” of what we’re all doing here. The beancounters told me to tell you that as of today, testing will no longer be as mandatory or as dangerous. That’s not gonna happen and here’s the reason.” “Science isn’t about why, it’s about why not. You ask: Why is so much of our science dangerous? I say: Why not marry safe science if you love it so much. In fact, why not invent a special safety door that won’t hit you in the butt on the way out, because you are fired.” “Plus, in the event of your death, I personally guarantee that, thanks to the form you were required to sign this morning, your family will not suffer the indignities of a prolonged and costly legal battle against Aperture Science. Trust me, I am rich, and it is a burden I would not wish on anyone.” One theory being bandied about by forumgoers is the version of GlaDOS responding from the BBS, which is 3.11, is a reference to March 11, the date that Valve will supposedly reveal more about what this Portal puzzle is all about. It’s also the date the Valve founder Gabe Newell will receive his Pioneer Award at this year’s Game Developers Conference Awards. There may be more, so let us know if we missed anything in this summary.

Read more from the original source:
Valve’s Portal Puzzle So Far: The Files Recovered From Aperture Science [Valve]

What Life As A Sim Might Look Like [Clips]

You’ve seen what it looks like to control The Sims, but have you ever wondered what it would be like to be a Sim? This graduate thesis project looks pretty close to us. The work of student Julia Yu Tsao, this is called “Curious Displays”, a network of “½ inch display blocks” that, if ever produced, would crawl around your house and, when you needed to be notified of something, form displays. Go here, pick this up, clean this, drink this, etc etc. So, yeah, just like being a Sim. Just note, if you see one saying “Climb in here while I brick this up and starve you to death”, best ignore it. Curious Displays from Julia Tsao on Vimeo . Curious Displays [Julia Y. Tsao, via Boing Boing ]

More:
What Life As A Sim Might Look Like [Clips]

Microsoft Want To Use The 360 For Health Care [Microsoft]

As of right now , you can use an Xbox 360 to play games, watch movies, listen to music and communicate with people. In the future, however, Microsoft would like you to also use it for health care. The R&D guys at Microsoft Research are hard at work finding ways for new uses for the Xbox 360, and some are currently focused on getting the 360 into hospital rooms. One potential application is to combine the 360’s relatively low cost and dedicated performance to “feed information from electronic medical records onto in-room display screens for patients”. Upcoming camera/motion sensing peripheral Project Natal is also being looked at, a possible use for the device being a means of filtering patient information: being able to differentiate between individuals, Natal could adjust the amount of patient detail being displayed depending on whether a doctor or family member was in the room. Natal could also, through it’s controller-free input, be used as a way to not only allow sick and injured hospital patients to play video games without the need to hold or manipulate a device, but also give them easy access to hospital services and even – in a first for the Xbox 360 – internet browsing (though we’d imagine if this ever came to be they’d be custom pieces of hardware, not off-the-shelf consoles). Microsoft E-health Research Taps Xbox, Mobile Phones [PC World]

Go here to see the original:
Microsoft Want To Use The 360 For Health Care [Microsoft]

Microsoft Want To Use The 360 For Health Care [Microsoft]

As of right now , you can use an Xbox 360 to play games, watch movies, listen to music and communicate with people. In the future, however, Microsoft would like you to also use it for health care. The R&D guys at Microsoft Research are hard at work finding ways for new uses for the Xbox 360, and some are currently focused on getting the 360 into hospital rooms. One potential application is to combine the 360’s relatively low cost and dedicated performance to “feed information from electronic medical records onto in-room display screens for patients”. Upcoming camera/motion sensing peripheral Project Natal is also being looked at, a possible use for the device being a means of filtering patient information: being able to differentiate between individuals, Natal could adjust the amount of patient detail being displayed depending on whether a doctor or family member was in the room. Natal could also, through it’s controller-free input, be used as a way to not only allow sick and injured hospital patients to play video games without the need to hold or manipulate a device, but also give them easy access to hospital services and even – in a first for the Xbox 360 – internet browsing (though we’d imagine if this ever came to be they’d be custom pieces of hardware, not off-the-shelf consoles). Microsoft E-health Research Taps Xbox, Mobile Phones [PC World]

Here is the original post:
Microsoft Want To Use The 360 For Health Care [Microsoft]

X10 [Note]

To: Ash From: Crecente Re: Tomorrow morning I have to get up at 4 a.m. to catch a 6 a.m. flight to San Francisco so I can meet with Ubisoft and then spend the rest of the day covering Microsoft’s big X10 event. It’s going to be a PACKED day. Packed with news, hands on and interviews. I’m psyched. I’m also tired… just thinking about it. What you missed: can videogames make us happy? Playing The Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom Credits The Road to IGF Is Paved With Good Games Heavy Rain Review: No Wrong Conclusion Does The Video Game Industry Need A Time Out? BioShock 2 PC Widescreen Pissing People Off Again Frankenreview: Dante’s Inferno Alpha Protocol Impressions: Looks Deceive Speak-Up On Kotaku: Damaged Packages, Missing PS2s, Bad Science, And Cheating Battlefield Bad Company 2 Impressions: The Tougher Battle iPhone’s World at War: Zombies Getting Verruckt Tomorrow StarCraft II Closed Beta Launches This Month World of Warcraft: No Growth Since 2008

Read more from the original source:
X10 [Note]

Star Trek MMO Log, Stardate 2010.09 [Mmo Log]

Join us for the second installment of my weekly Star Trek MMO log, in which we explore the depths of unknown space and gain a taste for blood as the fiery Orion battle maiden, Verdania. In last week’s Star Trek MMO log , I started my Federation character Qix, raising him to the rank of Lieutenant Commander and securing him his second-tier Starfleet escort vessel. This week I tool about a little more with Qix before taking a long, dark walk on the player-versus-player oriented Klingon side of the game. Be sure to keep up with the Star Trek MMO Log every week, so when the review comes after the fourth installment, you know where I’m coming from. Wednesday, February 3rd, 7:00AM Eastern Having spent most of launch day either working or sleeping, I wake up a little earlier than usual the day after launch to see how the game is doing. Logging into my Federation character, Qix, I set course for the Xarantine sector to complete the patrol mission I was involved in when I reached Lieutenant Commander. As I travel, I check out the new ship. My Escort is slightly more powerful than my starter ship, the biggest difference being the addition of an extra tactical station on the bridge, and an additional weapon in the front. It seems that the ship upgrades in the game are focused in one of three directions, tactical, science, and engineering, with one specialty gaining extra focus with each level of vessel. Since Qix is a tactical officer himself, I’m following that path. So I have an extra tactical slot, which is nice, but both of my tactical officers have the same power, a special attack that lays out a spread of photon torpedoes. It’s an area-of-effect attack, which so far hasn’t proven too useful. I’m going to have to replace one of them soon. Officers are like equipment in the game. Some provide more damage, others more defense. It’s actually rather clever. I enter the Honed system, my last stop in my patrol, and am greeted by something a bit different. Local authorities hail my ship, explaining they need Federation help. Several unarmed ships have been attacked in the area. The authorities suspect Romulans, but they need me to find the wreckage and scan for evidence in order to verify their suspicions. Scanning the first wreck, my science officer reports that residual energy common to Romulan weapons is present, but we need to scan another two wrecks to be certain. I get the odd feeling I am going to be attacked at some point during this mission, but I soldier on. Aha! Two wrecks in and my science officer has detected residual traces of antiprotons. We reconfigure sensors to scan for them, and now have to find a few more wrecks. Still no sign of enemy ships, but I am wary. It turns out my hunch was wrong. It was the Romulans who instigated the attacks, but I don’t have to fight them! The local authorities now have what they need to seek sanctions against the Romulans, and my mission is complete, without a shot fired. This is exactly the type of mission I enjoy in Star Trek Online. Space combat is lovely, and ground combat is passable, but these missions that put me in the role of space detective really make the game for me. Plus, the mission is over in 10-15 minutes, giving me a quick fix without me having to invest significant time to get anything done. I suppose I should go ahead and get a head start on work for the day. After I check out the Hromi Cluster. The Hromi Cluster is a sector of space filled with spatial anomalies. Some produce components for Star Trek Online’s version of crafting, while others are unknown systems. In one system I have to land on a planet’s surface and scan strange plants. That’s over in a few minutes. The other two systems I visit feature new races, seeking to establish trade with the Federation. In other words, they need 10 units of trading materials. This brings me to the trade system in Star Trek Online. A savvy player can make energy credits by buying commodities in one system and flying them to another. It’s not an exciting way to make a living, but it’s certainly profitable. Unless you’re buying them to give away to new races seeking to establish trade with the Federation, that is. I “hearth” back to Earth Spacedock, warp out, visit a wandering trade ship to pick up supplies, and head back to Hromi. Easy experience. It’s now 8:00AM, and I really should get ready for work. It’s very hard to slack off when you know there’s a possibility your boss will be reading all about it. Oh look! You can enter your bridge and walk around! Okay, seriously working now. Thursday, February 4th, 8:00AM There are several things I should be working on, but I can’t resist hopping online for a few quick missions. I finally take the new ship into a combat situation, and it performs like a dream. The extra weapon slot makes a big difference, as does the added power of another tactical console. I guess I should explain. Your ship, like your crew, have inventory slots. In a way, it’s like you have several characters to equip: you, your crew, and your ride. The starting ship has slots for two fore weapons, one aft weapon, shields, deflectors, impulse engines, two devices (generally consumables, like shield batteries), and one slot each for engineering, tactical, and science consoles. In the show, the console would be the station your officers stand at during battle. In the game, they are special devices that add buffs to your ship. A tactical console might add to torpedo power, while an engineering console will help with power management. When you get a new ship, the three different types weigh heavily on your choice of vessels. My newer ship, for instance, comes with an extra tactical console spot, as well as room for another tactical officer. A science vessel, on the other hand, would have extra science slots. As you progress through the game, your ship choice ultimately defines your role. By the time I have my Defiant-class ship, I’ll be one bad space mother. Anyway, combat works, and I have to as well. Friday, February 5th, 9:30PM It’s time to try the Klingon side of things! Once your Federation character has reached level 5, you have a chance to create a character on the Klingon side, with a different selection of races, all of which tool around on Klingon ships. Meet Verdania Haru, Orion science officer, former slave girl, and captain of the I.K.S. Greenhorn. Since you have to reach level five before joining the side, Star Trek Online dispense with the tutorial, dropping you smack dab in the middle of The Great Hall of Qo’nos. Instead of earning officers gradually, like the Federation do, I have to prove myself in hand-to-hand combat with four different NPCs, showing that I have the Klingon spirit within me. A nice touch, I thought, even if the combat is a bit loose. After a quick tour of the facilities I gain an entire level, plus access to the Klingon content. Warping to my ship, I take on my first mission: patrolling for Federation ships in the Kahless Expanse. The Klingon content is mainly focused on battle. The map of the area I start in is littered with fleet actions, random battles, war zones, and areas like the Kahless Expanse, which I head to immediately. My first mission involves scanning unknown signals to see if the Federation is nearby. I scan the first, and bingo! Engaging Federation ships. Immediately upon entering the battle zone I am in a firefight. The Klingons don’t screw around. Gaining my bearings quickly I dispatch several smaller ships, and then look about the area. There are Federation patrols everywhere, and I quickly take out the six necessary to complete my mission. The next mission? More battle! An hour into playing my Orion slave girl gone good (or bad ,depending on your viewpoint), I hit level seven (Lieutenant 7). At this rate I could be in a new ship by late tonight / early this morning. Or I could eat some Chinese food and watch television. I’ll do that. Saturday, February 6th, 11:00AM I return to Klingon space, this time hoping to get a taste of actual PVP combat, but first I take a detour to check out one of the Fleet Actions, to see if the large, static missions were any different on the Klingon side. Not particularly. In fact, this Borg mission is pretty much the same as a Federation mission I ran last week, only this time I blew up in a Bird-of-Prey. Nursing my wounded honor, I limp over to sign up for the player-versus-player queue. There are several options for queues to join, and once I join up the game seems to automatically assign me to three of them: two Klingon House Battles, which involve Klingons battling other Klingons, and a large-scale territory battle, in which Klingons fight against rival houses or the Federation for control of points in space. I wind up in a House Battle moments after joining the queue, with my team playing against another group of like-minded ridge-heads. Immediately one tactic comes to my attention. Most Klingon ships have cloaks, so one player on the opposing team plays the decoy, flying about in circles like an idiot. One or two enemies will head for him, taking potshots, and then the rest of the enemy team decloaks, tearing the attackers several new hull breaches. I play several rounds over the course of the next three hours, taking the tactic and making it my own. The key to winning seems to be staying together; lone ships are picked off easily, but large-scale battles can go either way, depending on the skill of the players. Speaking of skill, I have a quest in my queue called “It Is A Good Day To Die.” In order to complete it, you have to be killed 25 times by enemy players. I’ve not completed it yet. (Writer’s note: As of Sunday evening I still hadn’t completed it.) I have to say that I enjoy the ability to hop online, get into a quick PVP battle, and then hop off again. The Klingon side of things feels more like your typical online action game than an online role-playing game. I constantly hear players on the main channel complaining about the lack of Klingon content, but it hasn’t affected me so far, as I have plenty of other things to keep me busy. Like my review of White Knight Chronicles, which is due on Monday. I should probably go play that. Sunday, February 7th, 7:00PM It’s Super Bowl Sunday, everybody, and you know where I am! Yes, I’m at Starbucks. My girlfriend has a closing shift, and since the store is dead on Super Bowl Sunday, I decided to lend my support by playing Star Trek Online in a chair close to where she was. I’m so romantic. More Klingon time for me today. I take Valeria through several more House Battles, at one point scoring hits on each of the fifteen kills needed to win the round, which lends itself to some very impressive screenshots. (Writer’s note: Of course it helps if you actually take said screenshots.) After a few House Battles and one relatively quick territory game against the Federation, who we trounce quite soundly, I reach Lieutenant grade 11, which means it’s time for a new ship. Behold Verdania’s new Raptor-class ride! It packs a bigger punch than the Bird-of-Prey models, but lacks a combat cloak, meaning once I’m under fire, I stay under fire. Oh well. I’m a big girl. I can handle it. I spent most of Monday writing up my review of White Knight Chronicles , and most of today recovering from the lack of sleep that comes from having to complete a major role-playing game, so I didn’t get a chance to go online over the past two days, but I often thought of the game fondly, which certainly accounts for something. The Game So Far As much as I’ve been enjoying my time on the Klingon side, I find myself missing Qix and his Federation starship. Fighting an endless string of battles can only keep you going for so long. Perhaps that’s why Cryptic made having a Federation character a requirement for participating in Klingon gameplay. It certainly isn’t enough to stand on its own. Perhaps they’ll expand on it in time. As for the next week, I plan on seeking out new life and new civilizations with good old Captain Qix. Perhaps I can get into a Fleet? Perhaps mentioning my character’s in-game identifier is Qix@Bunnyspatial will help.

View post:
Star Trek MMO Log, Stardate 2010.09 [Mmo Log]

Why There Hasn’t Been A Truly Great Star Trek Game [Star Trek]

There have been some good Star Trek games over the years, yes. But you know what? There hasn’t been a really great one. And I think I know why. Before we go any further, let me get this off my chest: I don’t like Star Trek . I find it cheap, I find it boring. There’s too many bland characters spending too long saying nothing, and it relies too much on nonsensical techno-babble to propel its plotlines. What I look for in a good science fiction universe is a sense of gravity. That there are larger forces at work than chipper people in uniforms convening in a sun-drenched San Francisco. That there is dirt in the universe, a tangible sense of history told through rusted pipes and scorched hulls. That people dress, and behave, like they actually inhabit an alien world, and didn’t just walk onto the set of a daytime soap. It’s why I like things like Star Wars, Bladerunner, Dune and Aliens. They’re filthy, full of “real” people, and as such, come across as both more engaging and, in the context of constructing a fantasy setting, believable. Which are the kind of things I’m after in a science fiction setting. It’s also why many of those series have been home to truly classic video games. Sure, the gameplay itself helps matters, but then a game without context is naught but a series of 1’s and 0’s. Those universes inspired the great games based upon them, and the tone and designs the titles were able to borrow from made a great contribution to their effectiveness. Star Wars has the X-Wing series and Knights of the Old Republic. Blade Runner has…Blade Runner, perhaps the best adventure game ever made that didn’t have the word “Lucasarts” on the box. Aliens has the classic Aliens vs Predator series on PC (and soon console), and Dune has Dune 2, godfather of the real-time strategy genre. All worthy inclusions on any list of the most important, and most-loved video games of all time. But Star Trek? Eh, not so much. There have been some good (some really good) games along the way, sure; I quite enjoyed the 25th Anniversary adventure game, released in 1992 (all the while wishing George Lucas would do something similar), and both Elite Force and Star Trek: Armada were solid titles, but neither were really great . You’d never speak of them in the same breath as the titles listed above, for example, especially if you weren’t already a massive Star Trek fan. Which leads me to the question: why hasn’t there been a truly great Star Trek game? It’s not for want of trying; there have been dozens of titles based on the franchise released over the decades, for nearly every platform and spanning genres from FPS to RTS to adventure games. It’s not for the lack of an audience, either; Star Trek is one of the world’s best-loved series, with millions of fans across all four corners of the globe. I think it’s all to do with, well, Star Trek itself. To be truly great, a licensed game needs to do more than appeal to fans of the franchise. It needs to appeal to people as a game , not just a Star Trek game. And no Star Trek title has managed to do that. For the non-Trekkie, the casual observer, a game based on a fictional universe needs a strong fiction to support it. And I don’t think, for the average consumer, Star Trek can cut it compared with other science fiction franchises (or their standout games). Allow me to explain with a few examples. There’s Too Much Talking It’s no coincidence the best Star Trek game ever made was an adventure title, as talking and problem-solving is what the franchise spends most of its time doing. Yet still, year after year, developers and publishers release Star Trek games based on action. No! The action in Star Trek is boring! Why would you base first-person shooters in a universe where gunplay is one of its least exciting aspects? Developers should have taken more cues from 25th Anniversary – and the source material itself – and focused their games on what Star Trek does best. If space battles are as dependent upon squeezing out more juice from some system, or rerouting power from something else to some gun, then think of a game that capitalises on that. A Star Trek puzzle game, if you will. Or, failing that, another chatty adventure game. Midway vs Jutland Star Trek’s space combat is limited by the way the universe portrays the exchanges. Where space combat in series like Battlestar Galactica, Macross or Star Wars is based on the naval battles of the Second World War (a blend of ship-to-ship combat and carrier fighter attacks), in Star Trek it’s mostly (with some rare exceptions) just ship to ship. No fighters. So you lose the immediacy and fun that comes from being a fighter jock. You lose the excitement, that “I can take on the whole Empire myself” sense of individual heroism. Any game recreating the ship-to-ship combat of Star Trek must take a step back, like Bridge Commander did, and focus on the management of a larger craft. Which isn’t anywhere near as much fun. It’s Too Clean With its crisp uniforms and clean haircuts and insistence on focusing on the peace-loving Federation, there’s little room for a darker side to the Star Trek universe. Yet the darker side of a universe can often be the most entertaining. Smugglers, hookers, mercenaries, drug dealers; if you’re making a game set on foot, like an RPG or a shooter, these kind of people and places can add much-needed depth and variety to your game. Take the recent Mass Effect 2, for example. That entire game is spent on the messier fringes of the galaxy, as you shack up with species-eradicating monsters, psychopathic criminals and crackpot vigilantes. Could you attract such a range of colourful characters from a Star Trek setting? No. The worst it could manage is some annoying aliens at a bar. This extends to Star Trek’s individual characters. Where can you find a real, proper badass in the Star Trek universe? Someone you can build a game around, who has an interesting past or story you can thrust into the limelight? Because Star Trek Is Dorky There’s a reason the latest Star Trek film served as a “reboot” of the franchise: Star Trek had become a 21st century embarrassment. The franchise had grown stale, dated, and the once-mighty legions of Trekkies were in decline. It’s inability to move on from the tone and politics of a serialised TV sci-fi of the 1960’s had become a serious problem, one that lady captains and a show set on a space station instead of a space ship couldn’t solve. No game based on Star Trek, no matte how well developed, could overcome this. If the TV series looked and felt dated, then any games based on them would suffer the same fate. Because Video Games Do It Better I’ve heard people complain Mass Effect is simply BioWare’s take on Star Wars, but that’s way off. With its focus on intergalactic politics and inter-species relations, it’s much closer to Star Trek. Except it does it better. It has a more contemporary feel to it. It has, I think at least, a more mature, consistent visual style. Its politics have some weight to them, and its universe is a more believable, well-rounded one than Star Trek’s vision of crew cuts and bad guys. It’s a little sad when a series inspired so heavily by Star Trek is able to so easily outperform it, but that’s what the world has come to. Or, at least, had come to… Because The New Movie Is Awesome So Star Trek was boring? It was irrelevant? Its characters lacked depth? Those are all criticisms I would level at the “old” Star Trek. As in, anything that came before the 2009 film. The “new” Star Trek, however? I love it. Love it to bits. The characters had depth. They had humour. There was, for the first time in its life, some real grunt to the series, a real sense of weight and grit to the universe. It had finally, finally stepped away from cardboard TV sets and into a “real” world. Sadly, cameos aside there have been no ( proper ) games based on the new film. Which may, in light of my incessant complaining above, seem like a bad thing, a missed chance to make amends by building a game on stronger foundations. But really, it’s a good thing. It shows some restraint. That after forty years of under-performing Star Trek games, when a game is released based on JJ Abram’s take on the universe, it may actually do the same thing for Star Trek games that the 2009 reboot did for the films.

More:
Why There Hasn’t Been A Truly Great Star Trek Game [Star Trek]

Building The Perfect Star Trek Frankengame [Star Trek Online]

Has the perfect Star Trek video game been created? Perhaps not, but by taking key elements from the Star Trek games we’ve played over the past three decades, I believe we can come up with the perfect Star Trek Frankengame. Over the years, many Star Trek video game titles have come close to perfection in certain areas, but none has successfully combined all of the important elements of Star Trek to create the definitive experience. Some have nailed starship combat, while completely ignoring exploration. Others have embraced the concept of mankind reaching out into the universe, bringing our humanity to bear on issues that are both alien and familiar, skimping on the epic space battles. No one Star Trek game captures every important aspect of the show, but several of them torn apart and pieced together might do the trick. Here’s my recipe for the perfect Star Trek video game. One part boldly-going: Star Trek: The 25th Anniversary’s Exploration Gameplay In a medium obsessed with weapons, it can be hard to create a Star Trek title where the characters’ phasers aren’t always in their hands, the photon torpedoes always a button press away from launching. Creating a Star Trek game where all you do is fire guns is easy. Creating one that captures the essence of the original opening monologue is much more difficult. While many Trek titles have excelled at shooting, one fully encapsulated what it meant to explore strange new worlds, seeking out new life and new civilizations. Interplay’s Star Trek: The 25th Anniversary (and its follow-up, Judgment Rites) for the PC embodied the original series’ spirit of discovery, using adventure game point-and-click mechanics during away team missions, though allowing the player to control up to four characters instead of one. When I beam down on a bizarre alien world in a Trek game, this is how I want to interact. One part frantic phaser battles: Star Trek: Voyager – Elite Force’s First-Person Combat. Once the shooting starts, point-and-click navigation isn’t going to cut it. That’s where Raven Software’s Star Trek: Voyager – Elite Force comes in. Translating the Star Trek universe into a first-person shooter seemed like a ridiculous idea, but Raven managed to surprise everyone, delivering a story-driven shooter experience with a focus on teamwork that immersed players in the world of the series, rather than simply cutting and pasting Star Trek elements into a standard shooter template. More impressive still, they did this using the Star Trek: Voyager license, arguably creating the best thing to come of that series, the television show included. While I’d still prefer to explore with my mouse, when it’s time to take the phasers off stun, sign me up for Elite Force. A heaping helping of space combat: Star Trek: Starfleet Command’s Starship Battles. Star Trek is not Wing Commander. When you’re heading into battle with a 641 meter-long Galaxy class starship, you aren’t reaching for a joystick. The crack crew needed to maintain such a vessel during combat can’t be represented with an arcade experience. You need strategy, maneuverability, technical expertise, and a working knowledge of your enemy. Stephen Cole knew this when he created the tactical strategy board game Star Fleet Battles, so when Interplay took that board game and brought it to the computer as Star Trek: Starfleet Command, it created the best Star Trek space battle game of all time. Utilizing the LCARS (Library Computer Access/Retrieval System) interface created by franchise technical consultant Michael Okuda, Starfleet Command gave players quick access to every function needed to command a starship in battle, from weapons and shields to evasive maneuvers and electronic countermeasures. There is no arcade shooting here. It’s all about finding and exploiting your enemy’s weakness while making sure they don’t discover yours. I don’t want to fly my starship into battle; I want to command it. A handful of aged actors: Star Trek: Legacy’s Cast of Captains and Commanders Fans can argue all day long about which Star Trek series they prefer. I’ve seen civilized discussions come to blows when the subject of The Original Series versus The Next Generation comes up, and even the weaker entries in the franchise like Voyager and Enterprise have their passionate supporters. There’s really only one way to satisfy everyone, and that’s by including key figures from every series. That’s what Bethesda and Mad Doc Software’s Star Trek: Legacy did. While the Xbox 360 and PC game failed as a real-time strategy starship combat game, it did feature the most diverse cast of any Star Trek video game, with every major leader represented. From Scott Bakula’s Jonathan Archer to Kate Mulgrew’s Kathryn Janeway, Legacy brought together the strongest voices from each generation. While I don’t necessarily require all of the leaders, representatives from each iteration of Star Trek would be required in the ultimate Trek game, as well as… A bit of ham and cheese: Starfleet Academy’s Overacting It’s not a Star Trek without hammy dialog delivery from self-important actors, or established thespians stumbling over the thickest technobabble this side of a Larry Niven novel. I’m not saying it has to be quite as awkward as it was in High Voltage Software’s Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, but it had better be damn close. Extra points would be awarded if our franken-developers managed to include full-motion video of Kirk waddling about in an outfit that doesn’t fit quite right. If I wanted Oscar-award winning acting in my science fiction, I’d have been born in another reality completely. And there you have it. Take each of those elements from those five different games, place them on a transporter pad, throw a wrench in the machinery and beam them to my PC or console, and I’d be completely satified with what comes out on the other side. Of course, your results may vary. Perhaps your perfect Star Trek game contains elements the developers of these titles hadn’t dreamed of incorparating into a video game. Maybe you’re the harbinger of a new age of science fiction gaming, sitting there chewing your lip thoughtfully, trying to figure out how best to phrase how wrong my choices are. Or perhaps not. The bridge is yours. Check back all week for more of Kotaku’s Star Trek Week , including an in-depth look at the band-new Star Trek Online .

See more here:
Building The Perfect Star Trek Frankengame [Star Trek Online]

U.S. Navy: Video Games Improve Brains, "Fluid Intelligence" [Effects]

The cognitive effects of certain video-game-style activities are not only impressive but can last a couple of years, a researcher for the Navy recently explained. If gamers don’t want to believe that video games have an effect on them — at least any effect that will cause them to do antisocial things — will they accept research that suggests games make their brains work better? Here’s Ray Perez, program officer for the Office of Naval Research’s warfighter performance department: “We have discovered that video game players perform 10 to 20 percent higher in terms of perceptual and cognitive ability than normal people that are non-game players,” s … “We know that video games can increase perceptual abilities and short-term memory,” he said. They allow the player to focus longer and expand the player’s field of vision compared to people who don’t play video games, he added. While there is empirical evidence of increased brain plasticity in video gamers, Perez said, the process behind it is not well understood. His belief, he said, is that the neural networks involved in video gaming become more pronounced, have increased blood flow, and become more synchronized with other neural networks in the brain. Perez credits games and game-like simulations with giving people the ability to more quickly adapt new mental strategies for problem-solving. He says that, for 50 years, it was believed that no training could improve a person’s “fluid intelligence” — the ability “to work outside your present mindset, to think beyond what you have been taught, to go beyond your experience to solve problems in new and different ways.” But video games, the Navy researcher believes, are proving to be able to improve fluid intelligence, for two to two-and-a-half years. To get the nuances here, be sure to read this report in full. Adults Benefit from Playing Video Games [U.S. Department of Defense's Armed With Science site] [ PIC : Brain made of lime jello]

Original post:
U.S. Navy: Video Games Improve Brains, "Fluid Intelligence" [Effects]

Study: Brain Size And Gaming Ability Related [Science]

How good you are at video games could be related to the size of certain parts of your brain, researchers suggest. Beyond gaming, the research also suggests differences in learning rates. In the latest issue of everyone’s favorite brain journal Cerebral Cortex, a new study from University of Illinois, the University of Pittsburgh and Massachusetts Institute of Technology had 39 adults (29 women, 10 men) play two versions of a specially developed game with different purposes. On version had them achieve a single goal, the BBC reports, while the other version was related to shifting priorities. According to the MRI scans, those with larger nucleus accumbens, part of the brain’s “reward center”, did better in the first few hours. However, the players who ultimately did the best on the game with shifting priorities were those with larger sections on the caudate and putamen, which is the deep center of the brain. The researchers’ findings point to the ability to predict the difference in performance by measuring volume of the brain. This doesn’t mean you are stuck with the piddly peanut brain you were born with! “It has been shown that some parts of the brain are fairly plastic — they can change and develop,” says Prof Arthur Kramer of the University of Illinois. “The more we learn about these structures and function the more we can understand the circuits that promote memory and learning. That can have educational benefits but also implications for an ageing population where dementia is an issue.” It’s not how big your brain is, but how you use it, and all that jazz. Bigger doesn’t necessarily mean better. In the animal kingdom, not all creatures will large brains are intelligent. Humans, for example, have bigger brains than cows. And cows are dumb. Moo. BBC News – Video game success may be in the mind, study finds [BCC]

Link:
Study: Brain Size And Gaming Ability Related [Science]

Next Page »