Tag: Wil Wheaton

YouTube TV

Stuff on the Net

Due to poor quality of my photos, the blog post I was going to put up today will be delayed. In the interim, I’d like to take just a second to talk about something else. YouTube, a while back, put together an initiative to try to launch channels, less like their normal “someone posts videos” channels and more like a TV channel with programming and schedules and such.

Out of this have come two channels which launched today that I am very interested in. The first is from the Nerdist. I’ve been enjoying their podcasts, and much of the Nerdist podcast network, for some time now. Their new channel is going to feature a few awesome things, like Weird Al doing interviews and a show with the Muppets and cartoons. Here is a sneak peek at their line-up:

The second channel, and the one I am much more excited for comes from Felicia Day and it’s called Geek & Sundry. The channel has Dark Horse providing motion comics, Wil Wheaton’s Table Top, a book club, The Guild, Felicia’s own Flog, Written by a Kid and more. I am currently annoyed to be at work today where I can’t be watching the episodes they’ve already released. Check out this set of previews (it’s a playlist):

Given the level of awesome of previous music videos from Felicia & the Gang, I’m chomping at the bit to get home so I can properly watch this:

Until now, I’ve subscribed to few channels on YouTube, trusting that the best things would find their way to me on their own, but this new direction will have me actually going to YouTube on purpose to watch shows regularly and subscribing to channels so that I don’t miss a thing.

This is going to be great!

Dice Games

Gaming

I’ve been thinking about game design a bunch recently.  Most of it is MMO related in a “What kind of MMO would I really want to play?” sort of way as I mull over all the reasons why I have lost interest in pretty much all the MMOs on the market right now.  But outside of that, I’ve also been thinking about dice games.

A post over on Wil Wheaton’s blog reminded me of the game Button Men, and it got me to thinking about games I could make out of the giant bag of dice that I own.  (Dragon*Con, I went to a booth and bought a bucket of dice for like $20, its all in a Crown Royal bag now.)  So, as I’m thinking about what I can craft out of my dice and other things around the house, I got curious about the existence of other dice games.  In my searching of the Intertubes, I found tons of games that use traditional 6-sided dice (some that use many many of them), but very few that actually made use of 4-, 8-, 10-, 12-, and 20-sided dice (the rest of the tradition role playing game set), and that is what I am after.

I’m going to keep working out some ideas of my own, and maybe even post them here.  But in the meantime… know of any good dice based games?  Let me know…

Grand Theft Auto IV: The End of the World

Gaming

That isn’t actually the title of the game, but if you read enough stories in the media surrounding the game’s release, you might think that it should be.

Myself, I’ve never played a GTA game.  No wait, that’s not entirely true.  I’m pretty sure that back in 1997 I pirated a copy of the original game off a BBS and played it for about an hour.  I was bored.  My brother also gave me his copy of GTA: Vice City for the PC, which I’ve been meaning to install and play for a couple years now, but haven’t.  All in all, I’m just not excited about the series.

I’m not worried about the violence or the sex… the reason I’m not excited is because I just don’t generally enjoy playing the “bad guy” in games, unless I know there is going to be redemption.  I play games to be the good guy, the hero, the one man who stands in the way of the complete annihilation of the human race, or something like that.  Being the villain just isn’t my bag, baby.

There is a video floating around, I’m not going to link to it, showing clips of a few of the sex encounters with hookers from GTA IV.  Its definitely something I wouldn’t want my children to see if I had kids, at least not until we’d had the “sex talk” and I was sure they understood the difference between games and reality.  Of course, the sex is actually the least of the reasons why I’d want to keep the game from my kid… the way your character treats the women actually sits above that, and then there is all the violence which is actually at the top of the list.  But then, the game is rated M, so my kids wouldn’t get to play it, unless I were sure they could handle it, which is something I would determine for my child on a child by child basis… that’s what I hear is called “parenting”.  I certainly wouldn’t need the media or the government to make that decision for me.

Wil Wheaton (yeah, the kid who was on Star Trek: The Next Generation) has posted was I think is an excellent summary of how I feel on the whole brouhaha over the game.  Thanks to Ryan at Nerfbat for the link.

Anyway… unless someone tells me that GTA IV allows you to play through the game without being a criminal, or that you can play such that your criminal actions are for the greater good, I’m going to continue my course of not playing the GTA games.  Do they make GTA style games for good guys?  That I might be interesting in playing…