Get on my links, I’ll take you ’round the universe and all the other places too!

• Well, this is a fun story. If it wasn’t bad enough that Ubisoft forced consumers to have a constant online connection to play singleplayer games, EA decided to do the same with Command & Conquer 4: Tiberium Twilight, which is already showing obvious shortcomings. The small difference here is that the meat of C&C 4 is found online and only there does one find some reasoning to implement the validation system… But then Jeff Green, a former videogame journalist, comes along and points out the problems with EA’s decision on his Twitter account. “Booted twice–and progress lost–on my single-player C&C4 game because my DSL connection blinked. DRM fail. We need new solutions”. In another update, one can read: “Welp. I’ve tried to be open-minded. But my ‘net connection is finicky–and the constant disruption of my C&C4 SP game makes this unplayable”. Oh, did I forget to mention that Jeff Green is also… An executive content director at Electronic Arts itself? Oh snap!

• “Noor the Pacifist” is a World of Warcraft character whose player develops it exclusively – or as best as possible – through diplomatic relationships and by avoiding direct confrontation. As I write this, the only available information about the character that I can find places it at level 80, which is quite the feat. WoW.com interviews the player, who reveals his predisposition and techniques to develop Noor, but then an atrocious mindset flourishes in the comments section. A reader -  presumably a WoW player – claims Noor is “possibly the most boring gimmick leveling idea ever”. People often discuss the dichotomies and value of opposite role-playing designs (western versus eastern, for instance) but this seems like a good example of everything that went wrong with the genre’s maturing during the last two decades: a player is not only criticized by creating his own game experience, he’s also criticizd by developing a character according to the very nature of the term “role-play”. As if an RPG could only be dicated by combat or as if the concept of “pacifist” could only be understood if it were a character class and not a role.
• When it was published by Hiive Books, Andrew Rollings’ book – ZX Spectrum Book – 1982 to 199x – gained quite a following. From the introduction written by Sir Clive Sinclair himself to the huge amount of information and details about many of the ZX’s games, it was a veritable bible of the platform and a reprint following its sales success, in hardcover format, soon followed. But in early 2010, the book was made available in *pdf format, for free, at the World of Spectrum website. Anyone interested in one of the benchmarks of the videogame industry will find plenty of good stuff.
• Someone going by the “Grooveraider” alias published a video of the 1995 Winter Consumer Electronics Show, with footage of some of Nintendo’s demos for the Virtual Boy. Among them were Star Fox and Mario Land, which were never actually made into complete games.
• Kooky’s Return (Kuky se vrací), a movie written and directed by Jan Svěrák, combines live actors and puppets to tell a child’s fantasy about his teddy bear (Kooky). The most curious thing about the movie is that its production design is being handled by Jakub Dvorský – the man behind Amanita Design, creators of Samorost and Machinarium. The movie’s set for a May 2010 premiere, and you can already find a trailer here.
• Mikaël “Orioto” Aguirre has been creating phenomenal works based on videogames. In his DeviantArt portfolio you can find Mario, Metroid, Zelda and Phantasy Star 4 filtered by his vision and talent. A special mention to this Another World image <3
• Simple but effective concept: Specter Spelunker Shrinks is a Flash game where we grow or shrink in order to advance throughout the map. Good use of the concept of time and relatitivity when, for instance, fast-moving platforms slow down when we shrink.
• Robert Culp, an actor with a long history of television series but also with some movie roles in his curriculum, died age 79. Most gamers will know him as the voice of Dr. Wallace Breen in Half-Life 2.
• Nothing like some red wine to put rivalries aside.
• Jesus: compelling you to eat more since 1000 A.C.
• Drag and drop, sing and don’t stop.
• “My p-p-p-pork chops, my p-p-pork chops“.
• Rebel without a flock.

¯\(°_o)/¯