The next scary step in video games

Out of Body Experiences!

Hoo boy. Basically, the guy isn't creating a real out of body experience, he's creating the illusion of one. Still, if you can convince the user that he's having one, and you then gently take that body into a game environment... well, first person shooters probably won't be the most popular game for that console. :-)

Best Comic etc.

I really need a better title.

So, this week was a good week in comics. Batman #668, Star Lord, Invincible, Astonishing X-Men, X-Men First Class, and The Order were all worthy contenders. Heck, I only got two books I thought was of less quality: the ever-worsening Countdown and JSA Classified (Starring Mr. Terrific).

Its more fun talking about the bad stuff, so a brief word on that: I'm not liking what Countdown is doing with Mary Marvel. Her previous character was pretty unique in the DC Universe. Sure, it was cornball, possibly a little too girlscout, but it was clean of the "I'm angry all the time because I'm so edgy" thing that Powergirl or Supergirl have currently. Maybe they'll bring the old characterization back, but it seems too easy to me to pick Mary out of a list of powerful B-listers that would be interesting to corrupt, because, in essence, she was the one who stood out as uncorrupt already. I think it's more interesting to take someone who is already fighting their corrupt nature and then doubling the forces trying to push them towards the dark side. Also, the whole Jimmy Olsen thing is getting tiresome, and the Trickster and the Pied Piper can only do so much to keep the book from being a total waste.

JSA Classified had some of the worst art I've seen in a while. Everyone looked like they were wearing those flesh masks that the Texas Chainsaw Massacre guy wore. Several people looked like they had no eyes. Terrific himself looked like one of those shrunken heads you make out of apples. I like Mr. Terrific as a hero, I've always liked science heroes, but the art really got in the way of the story, which was already perhaps a little too Hollywood to start with. I think the writer saw too many Wesley Snipes movies before he wrote it. Also, the writer just doesn't get how smart Terrific is: its his most distinguishing feature. Terrific just acts dumb all the way through.

Now that we've said all that, here's the best comic of the week!




Blue Beetle! As I've said before, this book has some of the best dialog out there. It's funny and it's fast and I love how the characters interact. In this issue, BB gets to join the Teen Titans to fight Lobo. It's funny, but not silly, and Rogers does the Teen Titan characters better than you see them in their own book.

Congrats to Blue Beetle! You rock!

Brain Games: Start young or don't start at all

Sciencedaily is good for the blog. In this new study, researchers found that brain training, specifically memory training, works less and less well the older you get. In fact, those who need the benefits the most don't get the benefits of the training hardly at all. Of course, this article is a little hard to read, especially this part:

The results of the study suggest that in order to improve memory, one needs not
only to work hard, but work smart. People in their 60s and 70s used a strategy
of spending most of their time on studying the materials and very little on the
test, and showed large improvements over the testing sessions.
By contrast,
most people in their 80s and older spent very little time studying and instead
spent most of their time on the test. These people did not do well and showed
very little improvement even after two weeks of training.

It reads to me that people in their 80's have no patience for studying. Is that what this means? Or did they have a copy of the test and they kept going over it? Or is this talking about how long each age group took to take the test itself?

Either way, it looks like, if you want to maintain mental health, best start early.

Archives work!

Oh, what a little free time can do for a blog. Now you can go back in time and read all the dumb stuff I wrote in 2004.

Text Update!

I updated the bio and put a picture on the front page. Not a revamp, but its better than looking like I stopped working after Mythica. Go Team Gamefeil!

Brain Grease

It's study time! It looks like pronouns help people conserve brain power. A pronoun, as you may remember, takes the place of a proper noun: he, she and it instead of Bob, Betty and Marilyn Manson. When you encounter a proper name, your brain loads up all the info you need to remember what the person looks like, their history, etc. A pronoun will let the brain recognize who it is you're talking about, but won't load up excess info.

This is kind of cool, in that one of the main stumbling blocks we encounter in games is how to communicate with the player in an efficient and streamlined way. In knowing that proper names cause a bit of "brain lag" when called, we can account for that and write around it. An example would be that the dialog only deals with a single person or a named group (he, or they) instead of two or more distinct individuals ("Steve" and "Mike" and "Jeff").

The faster people can understand what you're saying the less they will totally ignore it and pay for it later.