iGame Radio

I’ve been trying to play catchup on my gameplaying for reviews, and designated today as a gameplay day…I’m gonna spend most of the day playing games. One on my plate is Aquaria, which I hadn’t yet received my review copy of, so decided to download the trial version.

Went to Ambrosia’s website, but ran into some problems because apparently the download doesn’t come directly from any server at Ambrosia, but at Macgamefiles. When clicking on the link to the download, however, it doesn’t take you to the Macgamefiles page, but stays at Ambrosia, bringing up this nice, classy pop-up page. Then you start downloading, but you don’t get any info about how large the file is, and I’ve had it abort several times.

I finally got tired of it and just copy/pasted the link into a new webpage, which does redirect you to the Macgamefiles download page for Aquaria, and you get a nice download that specifies file size (and thus time remaining for download). I suggest if you want to download the trial, that you use that method.

I’ve been spending time reviewing games in the IGF 2009 finalist list that have Mac versions (or soon will). Feist belongs in that category, at least according to the IGF entry and their website. Yet, when I reviewed their website, I could find now way to contact them. There is no current build for people to look at, Windows or Mac. I typed in the name of the company the developers list themselves under, Filthy Grip. If there is a website for it, I can’t find it. And though there is a link from the name of one of the developers to another website, it seems to be the academic site of that developer…in German. Dude, I don’t speak German.

The real issue here is that there seems to be no way to connect with these people, speaking German or otherwise. No company website with contact info, no game website with contact info, no developer website with contact info. No demo…just a short trailer that, while nice, really doesn’t show the level of game mechanic that this game advertises (you can’t see independent, autonomous actions by NPC characters in a game via a trailer). I can’t contact them for an interview, or to ask for a recent build to review.

I CAN’T TALK ABOUT THEM OTHER THAN TO SAY, GEE, THE TRAILER LOOKS NEAT.

So, Filthy Grip, developers of Feist, if you’d like to get more than just the awards that you’ve received, if you’d like to, you know, get marketing for your game before it gets out to the public, in a manner that is basically free (other than the time you have to spend in the interview or sending out a build), MAKE YOURSELVES MORE AVAILABLE. That would be nice.

I’m going to be updating this site over the next week or two, adding the player to each post about a podcast, and then adding in additional podcasts from the past. My eventual goal is to get all of my podcasts from all the way back to 2005 when I first started iGame Radio. I’m planning a relaunch of my site in a couple of months, though I’m not sure if I will wait until all of the podcasts are posted before I do so…depends one where I am with the podcast posting and what is going on at the time. But very soon when one clicks http://www.igameradio.com, one will come here only.

Or at least that’s how it seems to me. Australian retailers are apparently facing the possibility of some massive fines due to selling what the Australian Attorney-General John Hatzistergos in New South Wales calls illegally classified games. Most MMOG games that are sold south of the border are not classified according to the Australian Classification board.

Why, you ask? Well, Interactive Entertainment Association of Australia (IEAA) CEO Ron Curry claims that MMOGs don’t fall under the Classification (Publications, Films and Computer Games) Act of 1995. He believes they fall under different jurisdictions depending on where they are hosted, and if they are hosted internationally, they fall under the jurisdiction of the hosting country, and should be classified by them. Apparently, many MMOGs agree, as games like World of Warcraft, Pirates of the Burning Seas, and Age of Conan, all have no classification in the Aussi realm.

This gets even more interesting in light of the enforcement and penalty. Despite the strong statements by NSW A-G Hatzistergos, enforcement seems to be at the whim of individual Territories and States, which are waiting on complaints from the public before actually doing the enforcement. I mean, c’mon, the games are sitting right there on the shelf…the cop could walk right over from the coffee shop and see the violation occurring. That tells you just how important enforcement is. And for penalty? We’re talking AU$27,220.80 for selling a single copy of an unclassified game (or two years in jail)! That’s US$17,440.36! For a single copy of the game?! I mean, get real!

If you’ve been wondering why it is that you suddenly can’t seem to connect to your AOL or AIM-based account on iTunes, you can continue to wonder, but know that you don’t suffer alone. Apparently, this bug cropped up over the weekend, and has flooded the discussions.apple.com newsgroups. Hopefully Apple is actually working on a fix at the moment, but there has been no word as of yet of any progress.

Of course, now I have a bunch of game apps to download, and all are connected through my AIM account on iTunes. Bleah.