Gamers With Jobs

You've probably already heard it by now: Interplay was worried that some of their employees might not have enough time to spend with their families over the holidays and spontaneously decided to lay off a number of developers. Basically closing down Black Isle Studios and putting an end to the development of the game known under the working title 'Van Buren'.

Certis is MIA again saving some orphans in a burning orphanarium so I've been tasked to do The Week Ahead. I personally think he's just being a slacker, I mean it's not like you couldn't type while saving orphans. They're pretty small and malnourished, I bet you could pick em up with one hand.

The guys over at Krawall pointed out an interesting study published by Tobias Baumann, student of Multimedia Arts at the SAE Institute in Zurich, Switzlerland. He wondered about the aspects that make teamwork in o­nline games more or less enjoyable and put up a poll. About 4,700 players participated in the survey and stated their take o­n the games they played.

From the "Player of the Week" department comes this Straits Times story o­n Professor Arthur Li, Secretary for Education and Manpower in Hong Kong. The Prof was 'caught in the act' by some students during a meeting. Being the gamer that he is he even refused to apologize for playing Bejeweled o­n his PDA as "no constructive opinions" were voiced in the debate.

Many an ancient lord's last words had been, "You can't kill me because I've got magic aaargh."Horizons launches in Europe o­n Friday and here in North America we should see it o­n shelves o­n the 9th of this month, and thus, my time spent in the Horizons beta has run to a close.

Oh, I know what youÂ're thinking. Two Daily Elysiums in o­ne week, it must be getting close to Christmas. But youÂ're thinking it in a really sarcastic way. DonÂ't think I canÂ't tell.ThereÂ's an old saying where I come from: donÂ't kiss a rattlesnake goodnight o­n the first date.

Let me tell you a brief story. Last weekend, after Thanksgiving, I was taking a brief respite in what turned out to be a marathon gaming fiesta to eat some leftovers. I was just eating turkey and stuffing and mashed potatoes, nothing terribly challenging. Something suddenly went wrong.

I saw over at Slashdot Games and HomeLan Fed that Sega is suing EA over the game Simpsons: Road Rage. Sega took out a patent over thier game Crazy Taxi and claims Simpsons: Road Rage violates this patent. Take the time to read the patent. Ready to punch something yet? They patented NPCs jumping out of the way of the car. How the hell did they get away with that?

"The best car safety device is a rear-view mirror with a cop in it." - Dudley Moore As I reflect upon my time playing Project Gotham Racing 2, the memories of some races waft dreamlike through my consciousness. And it is no wonder since it was this game that caused me to recently play until 3:30 am, crossing the boundary from o­ne day to another as if it was no more than a lap marker.

Honestly, thereÂ's no end to the things people can think to argue over.