Published works: Music fans reaching for iPods less often
My latest for Fox & Friends. Not a shocker, but I still found it amusing.
My latest for Fox & Friends. Not a shocker, but I still found it amusing.
My latest for Fox & Friends.
One of the World’s Biggest Telescopes Is Buried Beneath the South Pole.
Like something out of a Dan Brown novel, I tell ya.
I’m a climate change agnostic. Nevertheless, my latest piece quickly drew fire from at least one insecure proponent of anthropogenic global warming.
“Try becoming a real journalist and offering up a balanced article,” the fanman wrote. I guess he didn’t like that I quoted both critics and skeptics in a single article. “Balanced,” would have completely ignored one side or the other, apparently.
Or maybe he’s just mad that Fox News exists.
One of six fabled BCS computers, not unlike something you’d use to surf YouTube.
My latest for Wired Magazine. Bang. (also syndicated on CNN and Gizmodo)
Crazy, isn’t it?
Reporting for Fox & Friends: “A new application lets parents photograph a software package at the store and instantly learn about any potentially questionable content.”
Go read my Fox & Friends story to find out.
New technology article I wrote for Fox & Friends on cool science fair projects.
A new slideshow I penned for Fox & Friends.
Reporting for Fox News… from the non-biased department. 🙂
On assignment for Fox News. They sorta butchered my informal tone. But it still turned out okay:
Coast Guard Preps for Hurricane Earl With Centuries of Experience Behind It
Hunker down, New England!
In addition to contributing stories to all corners of the web (except the dirty ones), I recently began penning a thrice weekly column for Dell Games / Alienware. If you like PC games, or ever thought of using a PC to play them (including HD ones), the column chronicles the high points of the platform without the overkill found elsewhere. Behold. (RSS here)
Excluding blog posts and short-news articles:
Excluding blog posts and short news articles:
Excluding reports, blog posts, and short-news articles:
Excluding blog posts and short news stories:
Excluding short articles and blog posts.
Excluding short articles and blog posts.
Excluding short stories and blog posts:
Excluding short blog posts and news stories:
Excluding short new and blog posts.
Excluding short articles and blog posts not on Smooth Harold:
Excluding short news articles and blog posts:
For video game pessimists and number crunchers, my latest:
I’ll let you in on a little secret: Beta, that silly subhead you see on so many websites, has been dead for quite some time. It just took a while before someone came out and said it. Here’s my latest from GigaOM, also syndicated on CNN/Fortune, entitled “Beta is dead”:
“Beta, as it pertains to web sites, has seen better days. Not long ago, saying the word as part of your web development cycle could help land venture capital even faster than claiming “community,” “paradigm shift” or “disruptive technology.” Now, the term is dissipated and confusing.
“While the specific origin of its use is unknown, beta as a tagline was popularized by a Google with the release of Google News in 2002, and later, Gmail in 2004. From there, startups quickly followed suit. By 2006, it seemed like every new web site was “in beta.” Continue reading…
See also:
For the nerds out there, my latest: “Your 401k is gone. The price of your home has crashed. Your paycheck is in doubt. Yeah, 2009 is shaping up to be a great year, thanks to the recession. But chin up, readers. With hard work, a little bit of luck, and a healthy dose of escapism, we’ll get through this. So when the going gets tough, look to these standout games to forget it all: the most anticipated video games of 2009.”
My latest: “PlayStation Home for the PlayStation 3 launched on Dec. 11, more than a year after the virtual world was first promised. The general online reaction to the free PS3 service? To put it lightly, boring, as shown by a scathing Penny Arcade cartoon on the service.
“So why would gamers, the overwhelming group of people buying the console, want to use it? “For the average gamer, it’s hard to meet other players,” says Jack Buser, who joined Sony eight months ago to become director of the new social community. “Home is a place where you can meet new friends, share interests, and play games. There are so many super cool people who own a PS3.”
My latest: “First, the bad news. The dreaded “Red Ring of Death” continues to plague Xbox 360 owners. Some reports have put the failure rate of the console at one-third. It’s a bummer, because there are so many great games.
“The good news — provided you’re in the lucky majority with a valid warranty — was that 2008 was another great year for Xbox fans. Not as jam-packed as last year, mind you. But with improved reliability and a new low price of $199, there’s no reason to miss the top 10 Xbox 360 games of 2008.”
Here’s my latest nerd minutia article, on the subject of video game of the year awards: Since becoming a full-time critic three years ago, I’ve been involved in selecting several game of the year awards, the summa cum laude of video game honors.
As a newbie, I was surprised to learn that voters are rarely, if ever, required to play all nominees before casting final ballots. Rather, a group of judges throws their favorites into a hat and lobbies against one another, whether or not they are qualified to do so. The process is very political. In most cases, the loudest voice always wins.
And therein lies the rub, underscoring how unorganized, unscientific, and naive some game of the year awards have become.
My latest: “Three years after its release, and the PSP is still lacking games — most people use it to watch movies on the go. But a nice mix of sports, arcade, shoot-‘em-ups, creative and traditional titles have made their way to the handheld this year. Though all but one were released in the first half of 2008, these are the best PlayStation Portable games of the year.”
Whoever said video games are recession proof is a turd. I know because my GamePro invoicing and contributions were drastically cut two weeks ago as the outlet readies for the great advertising scare and depression apocalypse of 2009. It was the right thing for the company to do in an effort to stay lean, even if freelancers like myself and lowly employees suffer as a result.
In any case, I will no longer serve as news editor for the publication, something I’ve greatly enjoyed since taking the helm in July 2007. Instead, I will remain an editor at large, helping to expand the coverage of GamePro’s subsidiary sites. I will continue responding to “letters to the editor” along with the occasional game review and preview, but for the time being, I will no longer be writing news.
During my tenure as news editor, I wrote more than 1,000 news articles (a partial list which can be found here) and oversaw 2,000 published works. I also scooped some original stories, got cited in CNN, planned coverage for a team of three reporters, and edited lots of copy. For any interested, click to your hearts content, and let me know if any media outlets are looking for wordsmiths (wink, wink).
Follow the yellow brick road to MSNBC and I’ll tell you my thoughts… sorta. For those that have played both, which do you prefer?
The big games this year are hard to miss: “Gears of War 2,” “Fallout 3,” “LittleBigPlanet,” “Guitar Hero.” But what about the low-profile ones that are just as good, if not better? The games that come out of nowhere to delight, inspire and surprise us?These are the best Cinderella games of 2008. If it’s the new and innovative you seek, don’t overlook these hidden gems.
Unplayable cut scenes, cinemas, or in-game movies have been a part of video games for more than 20 years. They help advance the plot, serve as a rest area for players and produce shock and awe like any good movie.
While the technique is evolving (some developers like Valve shun them altogether in favor of total interaction), cut scenes often make games feel bigger than they really are. And nobody does it better than the following games when it comes to memorable cinematics.
Ghosts may be the first thing you think of when you hear the word “spooky,” but they make for lousy Halloween costumes. They have a rich history with video games, and for that, I respect them. So in the spirit of disembodied souls and our favorite pagan holiday, I give to you the best video game ghosts of all time.
Microsoft says its “New Xbox Experience,” which rolls out Nov. 19, will “change the face of home entertainment for every Xbox 360 owner.” It doesn’t.
In reality, the New Xbox Experience is more appropriately described as a new menu system. It won’t revolutionize your console, but it will improve your experience. Ironically, the most interesting feature about this revamp to a game console’s user interface has nothing to do with games. It’s about movies.
Lindsey and I have been playing World Tour all weekend with friends. The game is Guitar Hero’s response to the popular Rock Band. The early verdict: World Tour improves upon Rock Band in almost every way, save for scoring, star power, and when someone fails. Plus, anything that has Van Halen gets bonus points from me. My full review at MSNBC…
It’s almost impossible to hear the word “Atari” and not reminisce on joysticks, paddle controllers, stick-men animation, beeps and blips and countless gaming classics. If it weren’t for Atari, there probably wouldn’t be Nintendo, PlayStation, or Xbox – at least as we know them.
While arcade hits make up the lion’s share of popular games found on Atari systems, original favorites also call the platform home. Wooden-panel consoles, we salute you with the best Atari games.
Developers have made more than 2,400 games for PlayStation 2, Sony says. That’s easily the most of any console, which makes sense, considering that a whopping 140 million of the units have been sold since its debut eight years ago.
With a library and audience that big, there truly is something for everyone on the system, and new games are still being released. The following five are the creme de la creme – and found only on the PS2 system.
In the early 80s, video game programmers did all the work: sprite design, writing, music — you name it. Often times, one or two people was all it took to develop a hit.
But these days, hundreds of programmers, artists, and designers work together to create our favorite games. Here’s a handy explanation of some of the most common jobs held inside a game studio.
Reducing the most memorable video game quotes to just five is a tough task. From classic “Duke Nukem” one-liners to the inadvertent hilarity of poor Japanese-to-English translations, the options are virtually endless.
And while a mention of “All your base are belong to us” is perhaps more than deserving (the phrase spawned a major Internet meme at the turn of the decade, after all), the following extracts are the ones that truly define the medium – the most choice video game quotes of all time.
Erich Remarque of Magnolia, Arkansas is pissed. After waiting three years to play Spore, he’s being treated more like a suspect than paying customer.
“[Spore] incorporates a draconian [digital rights management (DRM)] system that requires you to activate over the internet, and limits you to a grand total of 3 activations,” he writes in his glaringly critical review of the game on Amazon.com. “If you reach that limit, then you’ll have to call EA in order to add one extra activation. That’s not as simple as it sounds, since when you reach that point EA will assume that you, the paying customer, are a filthy pirating thief.”
Emotion may have got the best of Remarque, but he has reason to be upset over Spore’s limited use policy, which is extreme. And he’s not the only one who thinks so. At the time of writing, 85 percent of 3,000 user reviews on Amazon.com have given Spore a one-star (out of five) rating, almost all of them slamming the strict digital rights management employed by Electronic Arts.
Later this month, 20th Century Fox will release “Max Payne,” the most recent video game to get a Hollywood makeover. But if history is any indication, the movie will be a critical stinker, as have been the majority of cringe-inducing, game-related feature films.
That’s not to say there haven’t been any good ones (or at least a handful of bearable ones). And from time to time, there have even been some great ones, particularly those that use video games as a backdrop, as opposed to driving the central story. And these are the best – the ones that will leave you minimally embarrassed or even impressed.
“There is no way we’re putting that there,” my wife tells me.
We’ve just spent 20 minutes surveying our 1,100-square-foot apartment in search of a spot for our new “Dance Dance Revolution” pad. The only place to stash it is under the couch, and my wife knows it.
”OK,” she concedes, allowing the unorthodox storage given our growing game-related gadgetry.
I’m not the only one with an increasing stockpile of video-game peripherals. According to The NPD Group, the official bean-counter of U.S. video game sales, consumers spent a record $1.3 billion so far this year on plastic guitars, steering wheels and other add-ons, the result of games like “Wii Fit,” “Guitar Hero,” “Mario Kart Wii” and “Rock Band.”
Review scores are too complex. What began as a useful tool for players to compare and prioritize games has now become a confusing, lopsided, and political mess.
Consider score explanation guides, which often appear in magazines and review sites to interpret what should be easily understood: is a game any good? Furthermore, “average” games routinely score in the 80th percentile now, and the credibility of ratings are compromised when sly publishers allegedly work the system in exchange for favorable reviews (see also: Jeff Gerstmann).
So what’s a gamer to do? Should scores in reviews be thrown out altogether?
Ever since launch, the Xbox 360 core model without hard drive has largely been written off by gamers — and rightfully so. It lacks many of the attractive advantages of its older brothers, not to mention value for what’s included in the box. (Most core models can’t even save games without separate purchase!)
But all that’s about to change with the upcoming $80 price cut of the latest Arcade bundle (September 7, according to retailers), which includes a matte white system, wireless controller, and a 256 MB memory card for saving games and playing online.