Kotaku revealed today that Peter Molyneux sent a note along with the review copy of Fable 2 that Vanity Fair received. In it he asks that Vanity Fair to “[. . .] please, please, please, please, please find somebody who doesn’t play games, watch them play it and see how their world turns out, because I think it’s only when you see those differences that the unique experiences comes through.”

I think there’s some good ideas here. As gamers, when we read reviews, we’re only getting the opinions of people that have played dozens if not hundreds of games before. While every reviewer (at least in theory) tries to be objective, to play the game with fresh eyes, without a doubt their experiences with other games will seep into their reviews, possibly coloring their opinions. This is especially true of games that are the next installment in a series, as reviewers’ previous experience with the series can (negatively or positively) color their reviews. (Although this doesn’t happen all the time: compare PC Gamer’s review score for Crysis: Warhead to it’s review score for Crysis (98%), for example).

In the end, I think Molyneux’s idea has merit. But it does also come off as a kind of plea to give the game to a non-gamer so it’ll get a higher score. I’m hoping his intentions were pure. Who knows? If everyone added a non-gamer’s opnion to their reviews, we might just see a more balanced, less biased set of opnions than we might get otherwise. We could hear opinions from everyone (or closer), and less the select few.

And who doesn’t want that?

Today’s photo is from flickr user *clarity*. The original photo can be found here and is used under Creative Commons licensing.

An interesting article popped up over at Kotaku today. Now people that are 50 years old and above (well, at least 100,000 of them, some of whom are as old as 75 and all of whom live in Pennsylvania) are receiving computer games specially made to test them for visual alertness, as well as to keep these older folks’ cognitive decline on hold. Posit Science, the developer, will compare the performance of these people to the accident rates of their demographic, as well as track the number of hours each driver plays the games for. The purpose of this is for Allstate to at least try to see exactly why the accident rate among older drivers spikes once they hit their mid-sixties.

And, if all goes well, these drivers may even get a break on their car insurance.

I just want to say that I think this has the potential to be pretty cool. While it’s been reported for quite some time that video games help to train people’s hand-eye coordination, very few commercial companies have made an attempt to do anything with it. In my view, Allstate even trying this out will help to legitimize games as more than just toys to non-gamers across the US. This also opens the door for other companies to experiment with game-based training. Hopefully, this is only an early step to a world where games are used as more than just toys, but as tools for self-improvement that can help build a better tomorrow.

Today’s picture is from the flickr album of user davidden.  The original photo can be found here.  Used under Creative Commons licensing.

Right now I’m just so freaking excited about this game that I could piss my pants.

Ahem.

Sorry about that. I’m just a bit excited because Tad William’s sci-fi book series Otherland has been just begging for a video-game adaptation of some sort ever since it was written. The books mostly take place in a fantastical world of virtual reality, where anyone can build anything, as long as they have the money to do so, and avatars roam freely and play different games and interact in a myriad of ways.

Making a game out of people using the Internet, despite doing so in virtual reality, seems like a difficult task. But as far as I can tell, RealU and dtp entertainment AG (the developer and publisher, respectively) are nailing it. There’s not a ton of detail on the game right now, but we do know that it will run on the Unreal 3 engine, and that they’re aiming for 1080p resolution with a quad core processor for the benchmarks. All of this basically translates to the game looking extremely pretty, as you can tell from the image above.

Players will start out with a relatively featureless avatar, and then, as they learn to “manipulate the code” of the virtual reality their character inhabits, players can improve their avatar’s look, slowly gain more health, and so on. The very nature of the books and the previews released so far also hint at user generated content, although only time will really tell on that front.

So far two locations have been announced: Lambda Mall, which will serve as a social hub for the world, where NPCs and Player Characters alike will be able to hand out quests, and a host of minigames will be available for play at various shops; and Mars, the first of many virtual reality worlds built by characters in the game, which features a tower that looks like it’s a mile high. Both look absolutely incredible, and they’ve obviously been designed with an eye toward the fantastical.

The story gets a special note, as well. Tad Williams himself has been heavily involved in the game since its inception, and is apparently very happy with what’s going on so far, as you can see in his blog post on the subject. The story will not be a retread of the books’ either; players will define their own stories throughtout the game, although characters from the books will show up, although their roles haven’t been made especially clear.

I think this game has a shot. It’s the first really high-quality looking MMO to come along in a long time. It has quite a few really unique gameplay concepts, and, for once, it looks like an MMO developer isn’t just copying WoW.

Good luck to you, RealU and dtp entertainment AG. Keep it up, and I’ll be buying this game on day one.

Today’s picture comes from Tad Williams’ blog post on the game. Information comes from both that blog post and this fabulous preview article by Eurogamer.