Let off the list, and other DUH of the day that is 8/10/05

IGN's latest top 100 games list is notable for two reasons. First, unlike the Readers List of 99 games it does not demand that I eat chicken regularly. Second, it sucks slightly less. Actually, this list, compiled by IGN's editors, isn't bad at all. Solidly historical, more than fair to PC gaming. (Remember PC gaming? No. That's OK. Neither does the industry). I was going to give it a whole "Left off the list" treatment, but there's not that much to bitch about. No Nethack, no Zork, light on adventure games in general, Warcraft and Diablo probably deserved a place, WTF no Planescape Torment, and we're just about done.

I feel compelled to mention Future Imperfect, which is actually somehow less interesting than a discussion of grammatical tenses for which no construct exists in the English language. Which is saying a lot. It's an article of pretty pictures and no substance about the future of MMOG development, and I offer it to you so that you may point and laugh.

Slashdot gives us the best title of an article ever. And the actual article isn't too bad, though the metaphor is pretty much sheer gratuity.

Microsoft is in the console market in a big way, and being the whores that we always knew the market could sustain. First there's the announcement of multiple pricing tiers on the XBox 360, with, shockingly, most of them being the expensive price point. Then, better, funnier, we're locking third party peripheral manufacturers out. Both of these are rumor and speculation, of course, of the sort that are designed to see how loudly the hoi polloi bitch. My official position? "Meh."

Also? Dungeons and Dragons Online is delayed. Not that that's news. The news is that It's going from alpha to release in six months. LOLLERSKATES!

WHORES! I mean, Daily Duh 8/9/05

Having now taken a nice, Flying Spaghetti Monster-length day break, we return with daily coverage in a sense more familiar to Intelligent Design folks. Because what image fits less with video games than intelligent design?

Someone made thousands of dollars duping in EQ2, which gives EQ2 the notable distinction of being the first MMOG where the players make more money than the developers. I mean, really. Thousands of dollars? The fuck?

The chicken speaks to Jack Thompson, and tells him that Killer 7 has sex scenes, so he must DESTROY! No, really. He's petitioning the ESRB to change the rating on a game based on IGN's account of the game. And you thought he was stupid for being a drooling anti-video game activist. But no! He's stupid for reading IGN! Which leads to the crucial question - what came first - the chicken or the Vault?

I saw the link to Ten Ways MMORPGs Will Change the Future and thought "Oh God, this will be intolerable Kosterbabble." Suffice it to say that it's not.

And finally, in the short and sweet department, Man dies after playing video games for 50 hours. Gene pool thanks him.