Spybotics: The Nightfall Incident (A Golden Age Online Game)

Lego has made tons of online games. Tons and tons. I remember when I spent hours trying to beat Junkbot: Undercover (never did). But when the Spybotics robot line came out, I was amazed. I still have my two programmmable contraptions, after all these years. That has to say something. The robots came with a software cd that contained missions that you could load onto the bot, all briefed by some guy with a smooth British accent. But the coolest part was that you could program your own missions and pretend you were some superspy with high-tech super gadgets.

  The reason I actually got the robot, which had been discontinued by that point in time, was Lego's amazing marketing skills. The Spybotics website (now offline) had tons of online gadgets, like a hacking simulator and a code encryptor/decryptor. Spybotics: The Nightfall Incident, though, was by far the best thing on that site. It was a fun, expansive flash strategy game that really didn't have that much to do with the actual product.

  In the game you play a computer hacker trying to expand your Internet domain while trying to figure out who's been destroying computers all over the place. It's an online puzzle game, so it generally is something you play when you have a spare minute. But if you're going to waste a spare minute, take it from me. Good waste of minute.
  So here, play it: http://pandagames.biz/Strategy/Spybotics.html

  Feo.

  P.S.
  I loved the soundtrack. It still comes into my head occasionally after all these years.

Happy Birthday, Carrie Fisher!

I've met people who haven't seen Star Wars. Or have only seen the new trilogy. Shame on them (and shame on George Lucas for turning an amazing franchise into a child-oriented charity). They should be particularly ashamed today, for it is Carrie Fisher's birthday! Before the aforementioned people wallow in their shame, Carrie Fisher is the actress who starred as Princess Leia in the good Starwars films.

End of story?

No.

  Although Starwars crushed the careers of all the actors in it (except Harrison Ford), Carrie Fisher came out of that paradoxical train wreck generally unscathed. Sort of. While she's suffered through many personal issues over the year, it looks like she's gotten out into the clear in the past decade. 

  Anyways, Carrie Fisher is not just Princess Leia, she's also written four novels, an autobiography, two stage plays, and several screenplays. She's also starred in 70 other films and TV shows.

  So here's to 55 years for Carrie Fisher, and 55 more!

 
Feo.

Photo: IMDB

Feo Replies to Your Mind Mail (I Like Books.)

  I like books. Not just the literary part. I like the paperiness of them. The scientifically unexplainable phenomenon of a book falling open to your favorite page. The wonderful sensation of viciously throwing a  particularly horrible book you haven't read and that you have an essay on tomorrow at the wall. That's great. I love that feeling.

  "Dear Feo," you write in the study of your mind, a fire cracking pleasantly in the grate of your consciousness, "why have you suddenly assaulted us with your love for the physical codex book? I mean, I can totally relate, but can't we all? You don't have to go and become whoever it is that praises books, do you?"

  Well, dearest reader, I somewhat must. What, with all the e-readers and the new Kindle Fire, there apparently aren't going to be many books to throw at walls soon. And for me, that is quite a tragedy. As earlier stated, I like holding the book. I like ruffling the pages, staining the pages with tea and graphite-covered fingers. It gives the book an almost human quality: it can be your best friend or your worst enemy (Particularly horrible book. Essay. Tomorrow.).

  Okay, so this can seem somewhat alarmist, and it very well is. Codex (the normal kind of book, as opposed to a scroll) books are going to be around for a very long time. They will easily coexist with all the Kindles and iPads of the future. They will always have a place in our hearts and oak bookcases. 

  Why I really was writing on this topic is because of this article by John Biggs. Highly exaggerated, but still highly interesting. Go. Go and read it. On your iPad. After you're done, take the jet-pack and go to the hovermarket to get some Space-Milk. What am I supposed to eat my Spacial K with?

  I'm done here.

  Feo.

Warco: The Darker Side of Virtual War

It doesn't take too much to realize that First Person Shooters are at the top of the gaming market. Games like Call of Duty and Battlefield are selling by the millions. They are cinematic and realistic in a graphical aspect. They are not, however, realistic in the way war truly is. I'd say the best parallel to this is movies. We have movies like 'Rambo' and 'Delta Force', the film industry's versions of the Call of Duty game, then we have movies like 'The Hurt Locker'. What is the videogame equivalent of serious war movies?

  Say hello to "Warco".

  Warco, short for "War Commentator", is a first person shooter (FPS) game set in fictitious war-torn countries and regions very closely and obviously paralleling the armed conflicts occurring now in countries like Afghanistan and Libya. Except there's one catch: you don't have a gun.

  Armed only with a video camera and your wits, you take the place of a combat reporter thrown into the midst of very dangerous, and very real, conflicts. Judging from the development trailer, this is not a "run into the midst of battle and let your amour take care of it" game (it's a valid genre name). On the contrary, it requires you to think strategically to find the best way to get the shot without getting killed. And it's anything but childish and arcade-like. Soldiers' bodies convulse as they die before your eyes. Bloody civilians weakly moan for help, help that you can't give.

  Is it needlessly violent? If the videogame industry is going to continue making violent, but childish, shooters, then there must be a rebuttal of sorts. "War-games" have been played for ages, and it's not something that's going to, or should, in my opinion, change. War has always had a shroud of romanticism around it, and that is one of the reasons we never forget. But there should be another influence in gamers' lives. If that influence now has to be supplied by games, then so be it. Warco is this influence. It is true and harsh. It is the way war really is.

  So I don't know about you, but I am eagerly anticipating this game. We need more games of this sort; the original sort. I, for one, am tired of the one-man army format. The amazing Half-Life franchise perfected it to the decimal. We don't need another company jumping on that train. We need more Warco.

  Find out more at http://defiantdev.com/warco/.

  Feo.