Lorenzo Amato was rushed to hospital by his father, who feared he was suffering a stroke or brain trauma as the teenager would not respond to his surroundings.
At first doctors at Lecce hospital, Southern Italy, thought Lorenzo Amato was suffering from a severe brain disorder.
The teenager couldn't speak and didn't seem to understand anything going on around him.
Doctors diagnosed the condition after discovering that Amato had just finished a marathon session on his new PlayStation.
Local politician Antonio Buccoliero, who spoke to the doctors, said: "They eventually managed to take care of him once they understood that this was a strange kind of mental detachment connected to his PlayStation."
The youngster later ordered his father to throw away the computer games system.
"If I even think about it I want to throw up," he said.
Concerns have been raised over the growing number of youngsters who are becoming addicted to video games after the release of a new World of Warcraft video game, earlier this month.
World of Warcraft, which creates a vast interactive world for the gamer to explore, has grown into one of the most popular of all online games. More than 11 million people worldwide are registered as players.
Dr Richard Graham, a child psychiatrist at the Tavistock Centre, said: "Some of my clients will discuss playing games for 14 to 16 hours a day at times without breaks and for those the consequences are potentially very severe.
"The problem with World of Warcraft is the degree it can impact and create a socially withdrawn figure who may be connecting with people in the game and is largely dropping out of education, social opportunities," he said.
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Friday, November 21, 2008
Chris Talks Bout Gow 2 Movie
Two years the Gears of War franchise took the Xbox 360 by storm selling five million copies worldwide to date. Now with Gears of War 2 on stores shelves that success continues with two million copies sold in two weeks. Oh yeah, the game is pretty good too.
We caught up with creator and lead designer of the Gears of War franchise, Cliff Bleszinski to talk about Gears of War 2, its weaponry, and the upcoming movie.
Congratulations on 2 million sold!
Thanks. If only we could use that money to buy a sunny day, the weather here in North Carolina is massively depressing. Usually we have plum 80’s beautiful Carolina sunny day, but today is just a gray depressive rainy, depressa-thon.
That's too bad. Hopefully it'll get better. Anyway, how soon after the original Gears of War did you guys start working on Gears of War 2?
It was pretty quick, it was within a couple of weeks of when the first reviews came in and once the sales came in we were like, “Wow, clearly we have to do a sequel here.” Then we just got cranking on it, it was almost a no-brainer.
What was necessary for you guys to include this time around?
The process we used was called “new, better, more.” What could we put in the game that was new, what could we do better and what could we have more of. And we applied that across everything from the creatures to the weapons to the story to the multiplayer. The leads basically put their heads together and had a vote and figured out what the most important things were. That kind of drove the process and moving forward, there were a couple of little things that would have been nice that we wanted in Gears 1 but weren’t able to get it time-wise. Like getting knocked down and being able to crawl away from your enemy as well as a party system which these days is pretty much standard issues for your multiplayer experience. So these things were really great to get and would have loved to have them in the first game.
When working on Gears of War 2, what was your average day like?
My job was a combination of meetings, documentation and playing the game, as well as also playing other games to see what they do and how they do it. Then you basically recycle, lather, rinse, and repeat that. The meetings ranged from the leads linking up to brainstorming to everybody sitting in a room playing through a level and calling out criticisms and things that need to be improved as well as just sitting at my desk with a 360 just playing the game seeing what could be polished. So it’s always a combination of those things.
Joshua Ortega is known for his comic book work for the likes of Spider-Man, Batman and Star Wars. What was his role in the making of Gear of War 2?
He was the writer for the project. Not only did he work at a high level with Rod Ferguson and I on the story but he was also the script go-to guy in regards to working with Dave Nash, the lead level designers, and the other designers to make sure the writing packed a great punch. You know there are moments of horror, there moments of levity, and there’s the occasional sad moment sprinkled in there.
Some of the horror would have to be that worm level, right? That’s some nasty stuff.
Yeah, that has to be one of the grossest video game moments ever made, but in kind of a fun way. It reminds me of when you’re a kid and your mom goes and buys the Thanksgiving turkey and you’re sitting in the kitchen playing with the innards, ya know?
So what’s up the shotgun? People are complaining about the lack of firepower compared to Gears 1.
We have absolutely gone to great lengths to balance the shotgun a little bit better this time around. Because in Gears 1, it was all about not using cover and players just running up to each other and rolling and shotgunning each other which really circumvented the entire game we were trying to build. So that is absolutely a deliberate design decision.
How did the idea for the remixed version of the Hammerburst Rifle come about?
Well, we had the Hammerburst in the first game and it was okay but it wasn’t as satisfying as it could be. So we were like, we still like burst weapons so the idea of doing a burst pistol Robocop-style kind of came out. So we decided to shift that bursting-style functionality to the Gorgon which is the Locust’s heavy pistol and then take the Hammerburst turn into the carbine-type of weapon where it’s a slightly slower firing rate but packs a bit of a punch but you can also fire it as fast as you can pull the trigger plus give it a little bit a of a zoom which gives it some attractive qualities besides the Lancer with the chainsaw attached to it. It’s one of those weapons where people, when they use it initially, they’re like “Oh, this doesn’t have a chainsaw and it seems to fire slower, therefore, I don’t want to use it,” but those who take the time and give the weapon some attention will find that’s it’s very effective and very gratifying and satisfying.
There have also been some complaints about the matchmaking wait time. What the latest on that?
We and Microsoft are looking into some of the wait time issues. Right now Live is being hammered. But one thing that helps a bit is to hit B to cancel, then hit A to re-search to look for another party. But it’s very much a priority of ours to see what we can do to streamline that process as much as possible.
Anymore comic books planned?
Josh Ortega is absolutely working on that. The book is also doing very well too. So you’ll be seeing more on those fronts from graphic novel to novel.
Do you give direction and story for those kinds of things or do you let the writers just have at it?
Now that the universe is established, I just basically read over the stuff and give my notes. So I am involved but for authors to feel invested and feel like something is theirs, they kind of need to make it their own. So yeah, we give notes and the authors look at the story bible but at the same time they need the freedom to make the work their own so that’s what we allow them to do.
So is there any status on Gears 3 yet or any other projects you may be working on?
Nope, can’t really say what we’re working on yet. We’re just working on the movie and “other stuff.”
What about ideas for a different kind of game like a platformer or I don’t know… some kind of family game or something?
I always have a number of ideas and universes stirring around my head, some more family friendly than others and some not very family friendly in any sort of way. But a lot of it is what Epic feels is a good fit and what the market sees is a good fit because although I have all these ideas I want to do, we are very much a business and we have to figure what’s appropriate for us and the industry.
Speaking of the Gears of War movie how’s that coming along?
It’s coming along nice. We’re working on the script right now with Chris Morgan and Len Wiseman, a great visionary director, and we’re attempting to make a very great video game movie. That’s right, I said it!
Any word on casting wishes yet for Marcus or the rest of Delta Squad?
Well, somebody who’s not a wrestler or a UFC type guy. God bless those guys, I actually really love MMA, I think it’s a very good form of entertainment and very entertaining to watch. But we want an actor first and foremost, someone who is compelling to watch. That’s the ideal situation. I’ve said it before, like a Clive Owen-type, that kind of guy who has a face that looks like it’s been in a few pubs and a few pub fights, but is strangely magnetic and attractive, right? It’s a weird combination. But I have no idea on Dom but Cole Train? Who knows, maybe Lester Speight, the voice actor for Cole could probably play that role in the movie, you never know.
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Achievement System Explained in Detail
It could be argued that the biggest impact the Xbox 360 has had on videogames to date hasn't been any single game or technical advancement, but the Xbox Live achievements system built into every game released on the platform. The idea of special or hidden objectives for a game is hardly new, but tying them into a global account score has created an overwhelmingly popular addiction for many Xbox 360 gamers.
While a few games have fiddled with smaller-scale achievement systems of their own (such as Team Fortress 2 and Call of Duty 4), they often feel small in comparison and not as compelling. That's definitely not the case with the new achievements system recently introduced in World of Warcraft alongside the launch of the Wrath of the Lich King expansion. In many ways, it improves on the concept we've come to expect on the 360, adding a wealth of stats and other features that are great to fiddle through even if you never pick up a single achievement.
The main achievements screen is bound by default to the "Y" key, and brings up a list of categories, and overall score and recent achievements. Here's the main screen for the Death Knight I started last week -- as you can see, there are categories for everything from quests and dungeons to professions and PvP:
Probably the easiest achievements to get will be in the Exploration category, especially if you have level 70 characters. All that's required is exploring an entire zone, and you'll get the achievement for it. What's cool is that if you don't have the achievement for a zone, you can expand the listing to see a list of areas that you have or have not unlocked:
While most of the achievements are worth 10 points, there are some bigger achievements you can get for completing an entire category. For instance, in the Exploration category, I received 25-point achievements for fully exploring all of both the Eastern Kingdoms and Outland:
Another cool aspect of the achievements system can be found in the Quests category. As with Exploration, achievements are mostly broken down by zone, rewarding you for completing a set number of quests (usually every quest in the zone, minus one or two). Here, if you click on a zone, you can see exactly how many quests you've completed so far, which is pretty useful info as you're questing through a new area:
Quest achievements are broken down by "Classic" "The Burning Crusade" and "Wrath of the Lich King." The "Classic" quests aren't listed by zone, but simply require a set number of quests completed in either the Eastern Kingdoms or Kalimdor. "The Burning Crusade" category offers achievements for each zone, and then "Wrath of the Lich King" offers achievements not just for each zone, but for completing special quest chains or dailies. In other words, there's far more to be gained focusing on newer content than going back to Kalimdor for 10 points.
WoW's new achievements system also offers rewards for completing dungeons and raids, although the system stumbles a bit here. For whatever reason, the game has trouble detecting what bosses you might have downed pre-Lich King, and will often fail to give you credit in appropriate places. For example, despite countless clears of Stratholme and Scholomance, killing every boss and completing every quest for both instances, I was surprised to find I didn't have an achievement for either. On the other hand, I was properly credited for other dungeons and raids I'd completed, like Blackrock Depths or Blackwing Lair, so it's anyone's guess as to how the game tracks what you've completed in the past.
This lack of historical data also carries over to the "Statistics" panel, which is awesome if you've created a new character, but not particularly useful for looking at what your characters have done to date. Here's a look at my current Death Knight again, who's got 14 levels' worth of data behind him:
On the other hand, my older main character, who I've not really played in the expansion so far, has almost zero stats across the board.
The upshot of all this is that the achievements system will turn out to serve two really useful purposes in WoW: It'll give players yet one more way to spend their time in Azeroth and provide a wealth of useful stats going forward, even if they're missing some things you've done in the past. So if you'll excuse us, there's an achievement for Ragefire Chasm we need to complete.
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While a few games have fiddled with smaller-scale achievement systems of their own (such as Team Fortress 2 and Call of Duty 4), they often feel small in comparison and not as compelling. That's definitely not the case with the new achievements system recently introduced in World of Warcraft alongside the launch of the Wrath of the Lich King expansion. In many ways, it improves on the concept we've come to expect on the 360, adding a wealth of stats and other features that are great to fiddle through even if you never pick up a single achievement.
The main achievements screen is bound by default to the "Y" key, and brings up a list of categories, and overall score and recent achievements. Here's the main screen for the Death Knight I started last week -- as you can see, there are categories for everything from quests and dungeons to professions and PvP:
Probably the easiest achievements to get will be in the Exploration category, especially if you have level 70 characters. All that's required is exploring an entire zone, and you'll get the achievement for it. What's cool is that if you don't have the achievement for a zone, you can expand the listing to see a list of areas that you have or have not unlocked:
While most of the achievements are worth 10 points, there are some bigger achievements you can get for completing an entire category. For instance, in the Exploration category, I received 25-point achievements for fully exploring all of both the Eastern Kingdoms and Outland:
Another cool aspect of the achievements system can be found in the Quests category. As with Exploration, achievements are mostly broken down by zone, rewarding you for completing a set number of quests (usually every quest in the zone, minus one or two). Here, if you click on a zone, you can see exactly how many quests you've completed so far, which is pretty useful info as you're questing through a new area:
Quest achievements are broken down by "Classic" "The Burning Crusade" and "Wrath of the Lich King." The "Classic" quests aren't listed by zone, but simply require a set number of quests completed in either the Eastern Kingdoms or Kalimdor. "The Burning Crusade" category offers achievements for each zone, and then "Wrath of the Lich King" offers achievements not just for each zone, but for completing special quest chains or dailies. In other words, there's far more to be gained focusing on newer content than going back to Kalimdor for 10 points.
WoW's new achievements system also offers rewards for completing dungeons and raids, although the system stumbles a bit here. For whatever reason, the game has trouble detecting what bosses you might have downed pre-Lich King, and will often fail to give you credit in appropriate places. For example, despite countless clears of Stratholme and Scholomance, killing every boss and completing every quest for both instances, I was surprised to find I didn't have an achievement for either. On the other hand, I was properly credited for other dungeons and raids I'd completed, like Blackrock Depths or Blackwing Lair, so it's anyone's guess as to how the game tracks what you've completed in the past.
This lack of historical data also carries over to the "Statistics" panel, which is awesome if you've created a new character, but not particularly useful for looking at what your characters have done to date. Here's a look at my current Death Knight again, who's got 14 levels' worth of data behind him:
On the other hand, my older main character, who I've not really played in the expansion so far, has almost zero stats across the board.
The upshot of all this is that the achievements system will turn out to serve two really useful purposes in WoW: It'll give players yet one more way to spend their time in Azeroth and provide a wealth of useful stats going forward, even if they're missing some things you've done in the past. So if you'll excuse us, there's an achievement for Ragefire Chasm we need to complete.
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World of Warcraft Passion or Obsession?
REYKJAVIK (Reuters) - "World of Warcraft" has become a phenomenon among role-playing interactive online games with its unrivaled success leaving competitors racing to draw gamers into new virtual worlds.
The game has become an obsession for some players.
Dr Richard Graham, a child psychiatrist at the UK's Tavistock Center, was reported as warning last week that some young people were damaging their social and mental development by playing the game for up to 16 hours at a time."The problem with World of Warcraft is the degree it can impact and create a socially withdrawn figure who may be connecting with people in the game and is largely dropping out of education, social opportunities," he told The Telegraph.
But its success among gamers has rival publishers struggling to get into the increasingly popular MMO market.
Brett Close, chief executive and president of 38 Studios, which is developing a new fantasy MMO game, said about 80 percent of MMO games fail but companies continue to try as the appeal is that players become part of that world and spend to stay there.
"You can either spend $20 million to $40 million on a traditional console game that well surpasses its cost over about a year, or double that to yield significantly larger annual profits for five-plus years with an MMO game," said Close.
Billy Pidgeon, videogame research manager at IDC, said it was tough to compete directly with 'World of Warcraft,' but Funcom's 'Age of Conan,' CCP Games' 'EVE Online,' and Electronic Arts' 'Warhammer Online' were doing fine.
CCP Games released its science fiction MMO game, "EVE Online," five years ago and the company has found a niche of 300,000 gamers which has grown with each of the eight free game expansions. The latest "Quantum Rising," came out last week.
"I expect companies to continue to try to get a piece of this growing market," said Pidgeon.
The game has become an obsession for some players.
Dr Richard Graham, a child psychiatrist at the UK's Tavistock Center, was reported as warning last week that some young people were damaging their social and mental development by playing the game for up to 16 hours at a time."The problem with World of Warcraft is the degree it can impact and create a socially withdrawn figure who may be connecting with people in the game and is largely dropping out of education, social opportunities," he told The Telegraph.
But its success among gamers has rival publishers struggling to get into the increasingly popular MMO market.
Brett Close, chief executive and president of 38 Studios, which is developing a new fantasy MMO game, said about 80 percent of MMO games fail but companies continue to try as the appeal is that players become part of that world and spend to stay there.
"You can either spend $20 million to $40 million on a traditional console game that well surpasses its cost over about a year, or double that to yield significantly larger annual profits for five-plus years with an MMO game," said Close.
Billy Pidgeon, videogame research manager at IDC, said it was tough to compete directly with 'World of Warcraft,' but Funcom's 'Age of Conan,' CCP Games' 'EVE Online,' and Electronic Arts' 'Warhammer Online' were doing fine.
CCP Games released its science fiction MMO game, "EVE Online," five years ago and the company has found a niche of 300,000 gamers which has grown with each of the eight free game expansions. The latest "Quantum Rising," came out last week.
"I expect companies to continue to try to get a piece of this growing market," said Pidgeon.
Saturday, November 15, 2008
13 Tips For Lich King Newbies
Want to start playing “World of Warcraft” and the new “Wrath of the Lich King” expansion, but don’t know what to do?
We’ve come up with a few things you should know about the game — both in the game and outside of it — if you’re thinking about joining the 11 million other people around the globe who’ve logged on.
Take a look at our 13 tips and see if you’re ready to begin your adventures in Azeroth…
1. Yes, you’ll need three games to enjoy “Lich King.” But it doesn’t cost as much as you think. You can purchase the “World of Warcraft” Battle Chest which includes the original game and the “Burning Crusade” expansion for $39.99; it also includes strategy guides for both (handy). Then add $39.99 for the new “Lich King” expansion. So if you want the content that everyone else has, you’ll spend around $80. It’s not cheap, but you will be getting a lot all at once.
2. Check your specs. Before you run out and buy anything, you should check to see if your computer, PC or Mac, can handle the game. Most computers can.
3. You need to have a level 55 to start playing a Death Knight. If you’ve heard about the new Hero class, which is a major feature in “Lich King,” you first have to have an existing level 55 character on the server you’re on to be able to create a brand-new Death Knight from scratch. The Death Knight will also start at level 55 in a new area specific to Death Knights.
4. It’s not as hard as you think. The interface may seem intimidating at first, but when you begin the game, you start off with only a few abilities. The menus are pretty self-explanatory, and if you need help, there’s also plenty of websites and guides dedicated to all things “WoW,” like Thottbot, Allakhazam, WoWWiki and Wowdb, to name just a few.
5. You’re not that far behind. The game has been adjusted to allow new players to level faster. Quests now give more experience points, and the experience points needed to go from level to level has been reduced. To boot, characters can now obtain mounts at level 30 instead of level 40, making questing easier and faster. Plus, if you have friends in the game, they could also start a new character with you — after all, there is power in numbers.
6. … But you don’t have to play with other people. While it helps to have a friend or two with you, or to group with other players, you don’t have to play with other people. Even though it’s a “massively multiplayer” game, some people play the game solo.
7. Try different characters. You can create multiple characters of different races and classes — up to 10 per server — and you can create characters on multiple servers. So it wouldn’t hurt to create a bunch and try everything until you find ones that you like.
8. The more you plan to play, the cheaper it will be. The game costs $14.99 a month, but if you pay for three months at a time in full, it comes out to $13.99 a month, or $12.99 for six months in full. There are also subscription cards you can purchase where you pay month-to-month ahead of time if you’re worried about paying and not playing.
9. You can always come back. If you decide to quit or just don’t want to pay for the game for a while, you can turn off your account. But when/if you decide to come back, your characters will still be there (unless you manually delete your characters). Blizzard will save your characters forever so that you can easily come back whenever you want to.
10. Learn the lingo. There are a lot of abbreviations and terms in the game — AFK (away from keyboard), LFG (looking for group), NPC (non-player character), lag (slow Internet speeds or high latency), main (main character). Usually a quick Google search will explain it, so don’t post questions in the general chat about that stuff or you’ll end up looking like a n00b.
11. Use common courtesy. Just because you’re in a virtual world doesn’t mean real-life rules don’t apply. The game is monitored and all it takes is a click of a button to report someone who’s saying or doing something unacceptable in the game.
12. Player vs. Player isn’t mandatory. When you create a character, you can either choose the Horde or Alliance faction. You don’t have to participate in PvP unless you’re on a PvP server, area or battleground, and those will be demarcated accordingly. When in those areas, which you’ll have to go into intentionally, players on the opposing faction are your enemies and from there, anything is fair game.
13. We’re not all nerds. Many “WoW” players are not socially inept basement-dwellers. In fact, a slew of celebrities play the game, including Mila Kunis, Macaulay Culkin, Felicia Day, Brandy, Corpsegrinder… And according to this forum post, there’s many more, like William Shatner, Mr. T, Hulk Hogan, Dave Chapelle, Robin Williams, Vin Diesel, Cameron Diaz, Kanye West, Ben Affleck and… Jessica Simpson? If she can play it, anyone can.
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