• Fact, the world has many problems.
• Fact, many of these problems have really simple solutions.
• Problem, these solutions are usually only simple for people who don’t even know that the problem exists in the first place.

So he went and created a site that attempts to solve the world’s problems by making people aware of them. In the spirit of Stack Overflow and the likes, harnessing the community, he built this:

Debug the World

Let’s hope the site really takes off It’s an awesome idea, very worthy of your support.

Oh, and there’s a blog, too.

Now, why is that? Of course, it has everything to do with the recently released patch 2.0, and the Titan Pack expansion, and that aforementioned free weekend, and the fact that the game is 40% off until the 15th still; there’s hope the game sales rise to Steam #1 for some time at least and show yet another time how important game updates are, particularly when they’re free.

While we’re on the subject of Steam, my own copy was bought back before UT3 even was on Steam, but there is a way of adding it to Steam meanwhile: This tutorial is really nice and explains how to activate your retail copy on Steam. I’m not sure why I did this, considering the game worked a treat without Steam, but I did it anyway, and it worked.

Anyway, what is in that patch, actually? Have a look here, trailer and screenies! There’s a full Titan Pack preview on BeyondUnreal. Or directly watch the trailer below:

When I first heard about the expansion, my reaction was “gee, I hope they do something against the Biohazard/Deck/Suspense spam”. Well, they did! The new maps are really nice, at least the half-dozen that I already played. There’s new game modes -- Greed is great and works particularly well with titans, Betrayal is fun and spices up instagib enough for me to like it. The titans are awesome, both when being one and when fighting one. And there’s a new voting system in place.

Plus the server browser is way better than before (some say, it now has basic functionality, but that’s what we wanted), with pasting IPs and adding IPs to favourites and better filtering and displaying players (and bots!) on a server.

Really, if you tried UT3 before but decided you just couldn’t overcome some of those shortcomings that stood in the way of great fun, there’s way less between you and the fun now. Epic did fix the game. Now go buy it, and add “haslo” to your ingame friends list

Get the patch through one of these mirrors, or download it via Steam.

In other news, I’ll post another shooter news thingy, probably in a mere few hours.

Update 2009-03-11 12:28: That free Steam weekend that left many players unable to play? Gee, there’s another one, starting this Friday! If you feel like participating, better start preloading now, so you have the game when it’s free Via BeyondUnreal, and visible on the game’s Steam page.

Update 2009-03-19 11:09: Rock Paper Shotgun just ran an article about the amazing turn UT3′s sales took with those free weekends and the discounted price and the big free update. Gulag’s comment sums it up nicely:

RARRGH! Internet Game Gods From The Future Ate My Pre-Historic Business Model!!!

Stomp stomp stomp.

So much for “PC gaming is dead”.

Anyway, enough “dear journal”, I really have to quote these few sentences from Thomas Metzinger’s book, Being No One. While they do build on a lot of what he has written up to that point (starting with definitions of “transparency”, said constraints, “representation” and “phenomenal experience”), they’re utterly brilliant on their own as well, I think, and a big stepping stone for tackling the problem known as the hard problem of consciousness.

[...] If all other necessary and sufficient constraints for the emergence of phenomenal experience are satisfied by a given representational system, the addition of a transparent self-model will by necessity lead to the emergence of a phenomenal self. Phenomenal selfhood results from autoepistemic closure in a self-representing system; it is a lack of information. The prereflexive, preattentive experience of being someone results directly from the contents of the currently active self-model being transparent. [...] Under a general principle of ontological parsimony it is not necessary (or rational) to assume the existence of selves, because as theoretical entities they fulfill no indispensable explanatory function. What exists are information-processing systems engaged in the transparent process of phenomenal self-modelling. All that can be explained by the phenomenological notion of a “self” can also be explained using the representationalist notion of a transparent self-model.

Really, just brilliant.

(I do hope that this falls under fair use in the context of scientific research, if the quotation is too expansive please notify me and I will remove it, or narrow it down further, immediately.)

Get the soundtrack from here.

World of Goo Soundtrack

If all the raving reviews everywhere didn’t win you over, maybe this will And maybe you, just like me, merely appreciate that the independent developer that you already supported does indeed care as much about his customers as you knew he would.

My favourite? Red Carpet Extend-o-matic – I’m corny like that.

Left 4 Dead Title

It’s rare that I’m as hyped up for a game as I was for this one. I think the last time this happened was for Age of Conan, and I was disappointed by it, and the time before that must have been World of Warcraft (which I still irregularly play).

Zombies in the Rain

So what makes Left 4 Dead special? First off, it’s by Valve, and they know what they’re doing when it comes to multiplayer shooters – you know how much I love Team Fortress 2, admittedly I never was a Counterstrike person but that game is rather good as well I’m told.

A Horde of Zombies

Next, it has zombies – and zombies are great. Those are particularly nasty, the runny, 28 Days Later type, not the more common shuffling and loitering Zombies!!! type.

And finally, it has proper teamwork (a headset is very, very useful), and a truly cinematic feel – that Director AI thing does work. Eventhough just two chapters of one episode (total 20 chapters in 4 episodes, I think) are in the demo, it’s totally worth it, and does what it’s supposed to do: raise expectations that were really high even higher.

People who preordered (like me, obviously) already got to play the demo since yesterday, it should be in your Steam games list then. It’s gonna be open for everybody else as of tomorrow. Get it from Steam. As for me, I can’t wait for the 18th, when the full game comes out I will make a review after I got to play it properly.

If you want extensive previews of the full thing by the way, Rock Paper Shotgun has one for the coop mode, and one for the versus mode. And just now, they posted tons of screenies.

Update 2008-11-08 02:11: Apparently, you can play as the infected, even in the demo Gotta try that out tomorrow.

Update 2008-11-09 16:57: Seems I was wrong about the demo going open on the 8th, it’s on the 11th apparently. Torrented versions will not work online, they’ll only piss of legitimate customers like me when the game won’t start because somebody doesn’t have a legit demo.

Update 2008-11-10 16:55: I read two main criticisms when it comes to the demo so far: “The game is dull, something for sitting on the couch and eating chips while playing” – you haven’t played it in anything but easy or normal if you think that. And “the guns don’t even allow you to scope” – if you have a PC monitor, you won’t have to, as you have a high resolution; and the hunter rifle does have a scope and allows you to scope (middle mouse button), oddly enough, just like those guns that don’t have scopes don’t allow you to scope.

Zombies!!!

Quite some time ago, I bought this game, Zombies!!! – yep, that’s three exclamation marks. To say it with Terry Pratchett, “Multiple exclamation marks are a sure sign for a diseased mind!”

Considering we’re talking about zombies, that makes sense, too. Particularly if the game has the slogan, “This one’s a no-brainer!”

If you wonder what this post is about and why it isn’t a review – I wrote a little ruleset that allows you to play the game with all its expansions, all at once, and with some improvements. I present to you…

Totally Zombies!!! v1.3

Zombie!!! Dogs

Anyway, back to the game. It is, as I guess you can tell, about zombies. Many zombies, in particular. And I’m not talking about dozens, but hundreds. And it doesn’t just have regular zombies, but also government enhanced zombies (with minis that glow in the dark), zombie dogs, and zombie clowns.

So we established that the game is awesome now.

Dark Humour

The game isn’t for everyone, however. It is mostly based on luck, as such quite the opposite of Starcraft (where not even combat is rolled with dice) and still quite far away from Twilight Imperium, on a strategy-to-luck scale, and closer to Munchkin and the likes. It’s really important to draw good event cards, and to roll well for combat – although drawing good event cards allows you to slack when rolling. It also has quite simple rules, of the “can be explained in under five minutes” kind, where unexplained stuff at the start can easily fit in later. Finally, the art (particularly on the event cards) is pretty graphic, involving intestines and the likes.

Hundreds of Zombies

Even for people who like it (like me, obviously, I can’t resist hundreds of zombies), it has some frustrating things. Like too slow movement at times, death setting people back too much in the long run yet not being punishing enough in the short run. Or the expansion bits not being tempting enough, and, when multiple expansions are used, rather unbalanced (some too tough, some too easy). And the end game rewards the player who had the least action until then, too.

So I went and looked far and wide, and found plenty of tweaks and house rules that make the thing better. What I didn’t find though was one rule set that allowed to play all expansions together, using those tweaks and then some more to glue the whole thing into one game. So I went and wrote one.

This extended rules set is what I call Totally Zombies!!!, and its version 1.3 is available for download right here. Or on Board Game Geek, too.

Please comment if you like the rules, or if you’d change something else as well

Well, the beta is public now. And they added some more games. So go ahead and knock yourself out with awesome old school gaming bliss!

Also on Joystiq.

World of Goo

The game we’re looking at is World of Goo, created by the independent developer 2D Boy. It’s out since October 13th, was available on Steam but isn’t anymore in Europe due to some contract confusion – but you can still buy it directly from 2D Boy. I preordered mine from there, and it went entirely smooth.

Oh, something of note: The game comes without DRM! From the mail I got that told me my preorder copy was ready:

World of Goo has absolutely no copy protection or DRM at all, since we want to give you (and everyone) the best experience we can. Thanks for not distributing this, and helping us make this possible!

This means that I’d have bought the game even if it’d have been less great Too rigid DRM has the effect of not letting me buy it, last time that happened was with the Spore I was looking forward to so much

Graphics:

The graphics are utterly cute and charming, perfect for a casual game like this.

Miss World of Goo

Every level has a unique style, the goo balls have a quirky personality and hop around, the backgrounds and level overviews are marvellous. Each chapter has a distinct style, too, four of the five are seasonal and the fifth … is a secret.

Sunset with Goo Balls

The reason why you don’t see five stars here is because the (fixed) resolution they chose is merely 800×600 – while actually playing the pixels don’t bother that much really, but it’s not perfect, and only perfect gets 5 stars.

A nice touch is that the low resolution kinda reminds of those retro classics we all love so much…

Sound:

The only nitpick I have here is that the tracks are rather short (about a minute each) – there’s plenty of them (although they do repeat towards the end), and they greatly support the gameplay and feel of the levels as well. The goo balls make cute little “plop” or chattering noises whenever you pick them up, or drop them, or fling them, or whatever else you can do with them.

Gameplay:

The goal couldn’t be simpler in principle: Guide the goo balls to the exit, collect as many of them as you can by building close to the exit pipe and letting them jump out. The first level has a great sign showing how to do things:

First Level

That’s all the instructions you’ll ever need. Well, and the time trackback feature, another such shield.

The complexity doesn’t come from an overly complicated user interface, but from the different types of goo, and the levels themselves. Whenever you start thinking you might get bored by what you’re currently doing soon, there’s a new level with an entirely new challenge, new types of goo, new ways in which they stick to each other, new ways of interacting with them, and new obstacles to overcome.

But the changes are introduced so carefully that you barely notice you’re playing an entirely different game, it feels totally the same although you’re not using the same mechanics nor components anymore…

Different Way of Doing Things

Some of the levels really are positively hard. For one, I even had to cheat and look it up in their forums.

If you’re bored in the end after all, you can always ramp up the difficulty by trying to get OCD flags for the levels (Obsessive Completion Distinction Criteria) – those require you to finish the level faster, or bring more goo balls to the pipe, or only use a select number of turns.

Fun:

Oh, as if I hadn’t mentioned “fun” enough by now. This game is the most fun game I’ve played in years, period. With some social criticism and dark humour thrown in, of course. The learning and motivation curve are just perfect – you really see that these developers have something so many titles lack these days: Love for their game.

The game isn’t really meant to be one that wastes your time for years and years, like MMOs or online shooters are, so longevity is less of a criterion. Nevertheless, the OCD help there as well, and going back to earlier levels after more experience in more complicated ones is a rewarding experience. Additionally, the game is entirely a puzzler but nevertheless has a story worth of note.

And there’s always the World of Goo Corporation’s tower building minigame to keep you interested after you finished the levels, I had the 25th-highest tower worldwide for a few seconds. Too bad I had built the top bits a wee bit unstable and it crashed horribly.

Overall:

I was very, very tempted to give 5 stars, but the game does have some shortcomings. Since everything else is totally awesome, and it’s easy to find reviews that list what’s good, I’ll list those shortcomings here:

• There are some remaining bugs – I had a two or three crashes. One of them actually deleted my entire profile as well, so I had to start from scratch – luckily, that happened shortly after I reached Chapter 2 for the first time only.
• The music does get a bit repetitive – not because the tracks themselves wouldn’t be great, but because they’re so short.
• The game overall is somewhat short, although Ron Carmel (one of the devs) was probably right when he said that “Beyond the moon chapter in the European version, there will be no extra content. I think we’ve reached the point with this game where more is not better.”

But keep in mind that the game only costs $20, and is from a studio that consists of two people. And has no DRM. Before that background, I should maybe give the fifth star after all (but I won’t, can somebody bind my hand on my back please?)…

Anyway: Go buy it, now! This game finishes the discussion whether games can be art, simply by being art.

Update 2008-10-15 15:24: Gee, if you’re not convinced, there’s a demo now (the entire first chapter), via Rock Paper Shotgun. And you seem to be able to change the resolution with a little hack, although it didn’t quite work for my 1280×1024 (1024×768 went fine though).

The mixes I made so far (you can order them as well, or expand upon them, by entering their codes here – unfortunately, there’s no way to link directly to a mix – Edit: Links added, see comments!):

• Schoggifrucht (Mix 54802): My first try, tasted too much like Mango I found, but maybe that was just due to bad mixing. The approach was right, but I didn’t find enough nuts in there.
• Schoggifrucht II (Mix 55349): More nuts, awesome, and my favourites (Pecan and Cashew), too. But suddenly, the “Frucht” bits were too sparse, I needed those Mango back.
  
• Schoggifrucht III (Mix 55510): The perfect mix! Fruity and chocolatey and corny, no raisins or other stuff I don’t like.
  

mymuesli

I hear that the mymuesli site makers were on TV and all over traditional media as well meanwhile, so this might be old news already. For me, it was a revelation: I never started eating Müesli for breakfast (and often, didn’t eat breakfast at all), because I just hadn’t found one that I liked, and eating through all of them just to find that there’s yet another one I don’t like didn’t sound all too appealing to me.

So my personal alternative to mymuesli isn’t really “eat local Biomüesli”, but “eat refined Kellogs stuff or even nothing at all” – and suddenly, it’s way more biological (all the contents adhere bio guidelines and have certifications and whatnot, too), and makes a lot of sense from a health and nourishment point of view as well.

Anyway, a thorough recommendation: If you live in Switzerland, Germany or Austria, and feel like trying the user-friendly web2.0 interface and tinkering your own (rather expensive, but worth it) Müesli, there isn’t really much that should stop you

GOG Header

Yay! I was watching Good Old Games for some time now, was always looking forward to it since I first saw it. Today, I got the beta access key, a reason to rejoyce and share

First off, it’s awesome because you find games you always wanted to play but never found time to, then it’s awesome because you find games that you never knew were good. Finally, there’s no DRM, and it’s cheap … I’ll let their advertisement speak for itself:

1. We’ve got games your 10-year-old won’t be better at.
2. So you’re cheap. It’s okay – we are, too. ($10 max, currently)
3. You buy it, you keep it. (No DRM!)
4. All games are Vista and XP compatible. (with compatibility hints)
5. Extend the experience with tons of cool and exclusive add-ons.
6. We’re bringing together classic games and a classy community.
7. It’s so easy, your gramma’s probably already playing.

Store Layout

The Welcome Mail

Admittedly, this is a bit of a teaser in another way too, because the beta is only open for those who signed up for it before September 8th, so I’m sorry, you’ll probably not get in. Yet.

The catalogue they have is already impressive by the way. Not only do you find Fallout (both, of course), Descent (all three) and Earthworm Jim, but also underestimated gems like Sacrifice that I’ll love to play again

Now let’s just hope the silly publisher paranoia dies down and they realize that “Help, they sell our games that we don’t sell at all otherwise, and that are pirated all over the web without DRM right now, it’s evil”  doesn’t really make sense.

Or what do you think?

Update 08-09-27 22:34: I played through the tutorial of Sacrifice meanwhile again – gee, that game is really good, even after all this time Sure, the controls are a tad dated, the configuration options could be slightly better, and the graphics show their age, but the game has charme! Something many current-day games sorely lack. And, the payment and download and installation process went entirely smooth, no problems whatsoever – a really good impression the site makes here, continuing in the “no DRM, no hassle” vein Something I gladly pay for.