Paul's Time Sink

14 Dec, 2008

A few weeks ago, I picked up a copy of Lips. Lips is a karaoke party video game.  The game play is pretty simiar to the rythm based music games, but instead of pushing buttons in time with an onscreen display, you have to sing along with the song.  Using the included microphones the game detects your pitch and compares it to what it thinks is appropriate for the song.

They put a lot of nice touches on the microphones.  There are embedded LEDs that pulse and change colors with the music.  Also, there is an embedded accellerometer in the mic, and you can impove your score in the game by moving around.  In a party situation, other people who are not singing, can use the controllers to play backup instruments.

I am not a singer, my wife is, but this can be a fun game, especially in a party situation.  

I do have some problems with the game. The main problem that I have is that it appears that this game was ported to the Xbox 360, but doesn't correctly implement some of the main features.

1. Achievements - Most games that allow multiple to play on a single Xbox 360 use the Xbox user that is associated with a controller to determine who gets Xbox Achievements.  So normally, if I and my wife are logged in, I will get achievements for the accomplisments that I do, and she will get them for hers.  But in Lips, only the person who launched the game gets the achievements, even if they were earned by the other player.
2. Downloadable Content - Most games that have downloadable content will use that content, if one Xbox account has downloaded it (The DRM that the Xbox 360 uses makes content available to every user on the first Xbox that downloaded it and the user who authorized the download on any Xbox.   But not Lips.  In Lips only the user who downloaded the content can use it to sing.  So if a different user launches Lips, that content is not available.

Update: This problem has been discussed the Lips Xbox forums.  You need to launch Lips as each user that wants to access the DLC.  Then you need to select the content that you want to add to your library.

Technorati tags: Xbox 360, Xbox, Lips

20 Nov, 2007

This is pretty funny.  The developers of Call of Duty 4 added a cheat mode that lets you play the game like it were a ragtime movie.

 

[via Wired] 

Technorati tags: Call of Duty 4, ragtime, games

13 Nov, 2007

This is pretty funny:

 

Technorati tags: halo, xbox

13 Nov, 2007

I picked up Wii Carnival Games because I though that it would be a good game for our kids.  It isn't.  It is a pretty bad game.  There are some things wrong with it.

When you play, you have to create a new avatar, where you can customize the body and clothing.  Unfortunately, you can just pick your Mii, and have to waste time creating a new one that is not usable anywhere else.

Also, even though the game is rated E, young kids will not be able to win or even score with most of the games, so they get extremely frustrated.

I wouldn't recommend that you buy this game.

Technorati tags: Wii, Carnival Games, Nintendo

13 Sep, 2007

jbanes posted a comment to this post and pointed out the Wii Remote API that can be used by game developers to recognize all of the remote buttons and the accelerometer input.

Technorati tags: API, Wii

12 Sep, 2007

Since the Nintendo Wii has a Opera-based browser, several sites list games that are playable on the Wii.  Here are some of these sites:

http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/games/wii/
http://www.eiksoft.com/wii/index.htm
http://www.wiicade.com

These games are flash games that can be controlled with just the mouse, which the Wii remote emulates.

 (More)

Technorati tags: Nintendo, online, Opera, Wii

11 Sep, 2007

Here is a video of a Mario Brothers game that plays itself.

The Only Mario Level That Plays Itself - Watch more free videos

[via Boing Boing]

Technorati tags: game, Mario Brothers, video

29 Jun, 2007

• macosxhints.com - 10.4: Export Mail to mbox with Save As...
  (tags: email howto mac macosx mbox tips apple)

11 Jun, 2007

• Palm Treo 800w Details Leaked: WM6, Wi-Fi, EV-DO Rev. A - Gizmodo
  (tags: Treo 800w Wi-Fi EV-DO)
• jkOnTheRun: HTC touch online demo
  (tags: HTC Touch TouchFLO demo)

9 May, 2007

Here are some pretty fun flash games.  It is very easy to spend a lot of time on these games:

• Doodle - move a stick figure across a map, without getting erased.
• Desktop Tower Defense - prevent waves of "invaders" from getting across the map.

[via TechCrunch, Download Squad]

Technorati tags: Desktop Tower Defense, Doodle, flash, games

28 Apr, 2007

• Twitter API
  Twitter developer access
  (tags: web api mobile xml twitter)
• Full Twitter PHP Library (Ver 0.1)
  Complete code library for twitter using PHP
  (tags: api php twitter)

15 Mar, 2007

I just realized that our iMac was having a small problem with the the new version of Mac OS X.  10.4.9 now includes improved checking for damaged disk images.  All of the disk images that I had created so our kids could play their games, without using the CD, now are being reported as being corrupt.  (I doubt that they actually are all corrupt, unless the previous version of Disk Utility created corrupt images.)

Unfortunately, recreating the disk images from the original CDs does not solve the problem.  The error message still appears.

 (More)

Technorati tags: 10.4.9, AppleScript, disk images, Disk Utility, fsck, Mac OS X

8 Dec, 2006

I have been playing SOCOM Combined Assault for about a month now, and I really like the game.  Here are some of thoughts and other things that I have noticed:

1. The briefing rooms for cooperative and "classic" games are in seperate lists
2. If you use your SOCOM 3 username and password, it pulls over your online Clan information.
3. The cooperative games can only have up to 4 people in it.
4. The progressive video output looks better than it did in SOCOM 3
5. The new "classic" maps are pretty fun.
6. In the cooperative games, one of the items that you can add to your pack is a MedPack.  This you can use to heal yoursel, or one of your teammates.
7. In the cooperative games, you don't need to push-to-talk.  This applies to the game and in the waiting room.

Technorati tags: Combined Assault, PS2, SOCOM

2 Aug, 2006

I saw this post mentioning the Xploder HDTV PS2 Upgrade.  Supposedly, this will allow you to play your PS2 games in Enhanced Definition (480p), HD (720p or 1080i) or VGA.  I am not sure this will work.  The post mentions that it is a device, and comes with component cables.  Also it sounds like there is some software that needs to be installed on the PS2.  This makes it seem that this will connect to the expansion port of the PS2 (This implies that it will only work with the original PS2), and that there are component cables and a VGA port on the back.

I don't imagine that this will work that well.  The PS2 and the games written for it can only output up to 480p.  So essentially this is is just a line doubler.  And I don't think that the quality of this line doubler would be better than the line doubler built into most HDTVs.

Technorati Tags: HDTV, PS2, Xploder

29 Jul, 2006

What do you do when waiting for an appointment, or the train?  When I am in this situation, I have been playing Luxor on my phone.  This is a pretty addictive game.  It is a game where you need to match three or more spheres of the same color, in a moving row of spheres, before the spheres get to the end of the track.

This is game works well a cell phone with the simple controls, and with a small screen.  It looks like this game is also available for Mac OS X and Windows, and for online play.

Technorati Tags: cell phone, game, Luxor AR