Disturbing

I saw this the other day, about what parents think is offensive in games. Wait a second, isn't a graphically severed head more...gruesome than two people having sex heterosexually?

Granted, the question had the term "offensive", but in my case it would be swearing, severed head, gay men kissing, then hetero sex.

Which is kinda funny, because I was thinking about the language in online gaming. I play online games (not the MMORPG but ~30 player stuff). And it's quite amusing to hear some of the languages used.

I tend to play on the European servers, so you have a variety of languages being thrown around - I've heard Italian, German, Spanish, Dutch, French. English, of course, comes in many flavours, and I have heard the chavvy accent, Scottish, some random English accents...and American.
I noticed that most American players seem to have kind of Midwest like twang (kind of difficult to understand for me), and that they swear a lot. It's like a competition to try and put in as much expletives in a sentence as possible.
And apart from swearing, they make threats. I have heard one person threaten another that they will "come and kill you if I knew where you lived", another two going on a rant for 20 minutes using various derogatory terms for homosexual men. Those two, I remember, because I was shocked. A few where they just went on and on, swearing. That is a mite irritating. There was one game where the guy was complaining about the lack of tactical finesse in the team - by slagging off everyone. Me thinks he is NOT going to be a great middle manager.

Apart from that, I've heard people complaining that they don't speak English (wow, welcome to the Earth, dude), men trying to figure out if one was a "girl" or not (tad hard when you have to speak through a headset), chatting idly about the game and life and things in general (oh, so where are you? Florida? Cool), randomly trying to converse in broken English, and so on.
Most of the time, it is when players get irritated and take things personally, that things go south.

It is amusing to listen.
But I could really do without all the swearing...

Ring of fire, ring of death

I'm a (casual) gamer (whatever that means). And I hate Microsoft, or the idea that they ventured into the console world, so I will happily stick with my PlayStation3 and Wii, and just shrug at all the talk of MasterChef. Sorry, Chief.

So I was feeling smug when I saw this over at Kotaku, the source of all gossip and rumours weird and wonderful in the world of gaming, regarding the Red Ring of Death on the Xbox 360. And then went on to read the actual story.
Interesting reading.

One of my friends who owns a Xbox 360, bought a Sony laptop, and as soon as the laptop was delivered to his home, the Xbox died. Now that was funny.

Happy New Year!

So the 12 days of holiday for normal people is over, and everyone is back to work. What were we doing on New Years Eve and all? Well, playing Portal of course! (For those of you not in the know, Portal is one of five games in the "Orange Box", a game for PS3 which includes Half-life 2, HL2 episode 1, HL2 episode 2 and Team Fortress 2. Portal and Team Fortress 2 has nothing to do with Half-Life 2).
And once you finish playing Portal, you have this nice little song, called "Still Alive", sung by the female voiced computer (GLaDOS) as the credits roll....and it's such a pretty song.

It was written by Jonathan Coulton, and is sung by Ellen McLain (the voice of GLaDOS). The lyrics are here in Coulton's blog. I guess I like the song, not just for the music but because of the lyrics too. Very geeky, and the science bit appeals to me. The cake, too.
From the website of people behind the game, Valve, you can buy the soundtrack. I'd actually like that poster of the cake they bake you.

Portal is a great game, and the Orange Box is highly recommended if only for that game. The geeks will like that, and online gamers will enjoy the daftness of Team Fortress 2. I haven't played Half-Life 2 so I can't comment yet.
But now, back to beating the shit out of amateurs in Warhawk for me. There is something so satisfying in knowing that my online opponents are mostly men, getting their asses whipped by moi, a lady. Mwahahahahaha!!!!!

Be more active

Maybe I should sell my Wii after reading this.

Not that I would be swayed by a study which wasn't published in mainstream scientific journals.

It's the same everywhere?

Manhunt 2 has been in the headlines recently for the wrong reasons. Through Gamesradar, I came across a blog, specifically this entry, written by a former employee of Rockstar games, the publisher/developer of Manhunt 2.

It's interesting to read about people in other industries, who have to cope with shit situation - like this guy Jeff. It's also funny that how being 30, newly married, he didn't want to carry on with his work situation - doesn't that sound familiar? Add to that, arguments which were screaming matches? Wow.
I mean, in academic science, it is taken for granted that you work 14 hour days with no weekends. And people don't complain about it because they are young, naive, they don't know what they want. Do these young ones seriously think that they can be PIs? Anyway.
And talk about immaturity and not knowing management skills. I really can sympathesise with his situation, and also reflect on what happens in a company - just replace it in a lab, and you can just imagine.

It seems like gamers in the USA will actually be able to experience Manhunt 2. I bet it won't include screen shots like this though...

For gamers

If you like me, have been waiting with anticipation for Solid Snake's return, then whet your appetite with this trailer for the E3 2007 convention.

Otherwise, if you want to get gamers into biology related stuff, why not get them playing Nucleus? You need a PS3, but still I give them kudos for dipping into the great biology world.