iGame Radio

If you are looking for some Centipede action, you’re no longer going to find it on your iPhone. So says Gamezebo, which noted in an article today that several iPhone games by Atari have mysteriously disappeared from the App Store.

Games such as Missile Command, Super Breakout and Centipede were originally brought to the App Store in 2008 in what many thought would be the first of many re-imagined and re-built classics of arcade tradition from Atari. But since then, no new titles were added, despite Atari leveling legal threats against other App developers for bringing Breakout knockoffs to the Store. Interestingly enough, one does find Missile Command knockoffs, such as Warheads, in the store, but so far they have not been removed.

Gamezebo mentions the possibility of an Atari 2600 emulator that is currently in the works as being a potential reason for the disappearances. Manomino, the developer behind the popular Commodore 64 emulator, said back in April that they were “in the early stages of negotiation with Infogrames/Atari, but have a good dialogue going with the right people.” The fact that both an emulator and a remastered version of these games could exist at the same time on the App Store makes that doubtful.

No word has been heard from Atari at this time for why these titles have disappeared. So the gaming world must wait and hope that something more interesting is in the works.

Right now, I’m watching my monitor as my new Mac Pro restores a disk image of my G5′s harddrive. It’s going to be a lengthy process, as I’ve been watching it for a few minutes, and the gauge has only moved a short bit. I’m not even certain what will happen after I create that image. I’m hoping that I’ll be able to move the files onto my Mac Pro’s harddrive.

You’d think I’d just be able to move the files directly from the G5 harddrive onto the Mac Pro. Apparently not. Not certain why, but the Mac Pro refuses to recognize the harddrive. I can see it in Disk Utility. But I can’t do anything with it. I tried plugging it into an external SATA drive. Nope, wouldn’t recognize it there either. For that matter, my Macbook Pro wouldn’t recognize it, too. Interestingly enough, my husband’s Linux box did.

This is all due to the fact that I decided to transfer my accounts from my G5 (her name is Janin) over to my new Mac Pro (he’s decided his name is Cress). Only Janin decided she wasn’t happy about this displacement, and has apparently committed seppuku. While in the process of trying to do the initial transfer via firewire, the whole thing stalled. I had to do a restart, and then all hell broke loose. Janin wouldn’t recognize the monitor, wouldn’t chime, and the fans started driving like there was no tomorrow. It didn’t seem to matter to her that she was going to be used by my girls (they are good to their computers). Naw, she decided to go out spectacularly.

I’ve tried everything. I unplugged everything except the monitor, keyboard & mouse combo, and power supply. I removed the video card and unplugged the monitor. I restarted PMU, PRAM, and NVRAM. Nothing worked.

Worse, I couldn’t find a single thing online to tell me absolutely what the reason was for Cress not recognizing Janin’s harddrive. Was it because Intel Mac’s don’t normally recognize PPC Mac harddrives? Is Janin’s harddrive hosed (doubtful, since I can still see it in disk utility and my husband can still manipulate files on his Linux box)? Is there a way to still get the harddrive to talk to the Intel Mac? Nada, as far as help. C’mon, Intarwebs…you’re supposed to be helpful, not annoying.

In any case, I’m going to be working on trying to get Cress up and running this week. It will hopefully be a one or two day process. But there’s no way I’ll get that done and get a podcast in at the same time. I’ve got way too much on my plate at the moment (remember, I don’t do just iGame Radio). But I will be posting info about the latest Mac news when I can.

Wish me luck!

The major Apple event that everyone is talking about wherein our precious Tablet and who knows what else (I can haz iPhone 4G, anyone?) will/may be revealed will start momentarily. If you want to keep up on the latest you can hop onto live blogging sites such as The Loop or Mac|Life. I will also be watching these sites and will be tweeting the latest and greatest news as they happen. Lastly, I’ll provide an overview afterwards.

Don’t forget that today is the day to make a donation through Indie Relief by purchasing a game from one of the participating developers. They will donate all of their sales for the apps you purchase to a Haitian relief organization. For more information regarding this excellent way you can help the Haitians in their desperate time of need, review my first post about Indie Relief.

 

Episode 74 is posted. Cory Tamas and I chat about the state of Mac gaming. Plus, a review of Justin Ficarrotta’s award winning game Laserface Jones vs Doomsday Odious, and Transgaming’s PuzzleQuest: Challenge of the Warlords for the iPhone.

Laserface Jones vs. Doomsday Odious by Justin Ficarrotta


PuzzleQuest: Challenge of the Warlords for the iPhone by Transgaming

Some of you may have already heard that Garage Games has made their great announcement regarding Tribes, that they’ve obtained the IP for the game, that they are going to implement it into the InstantAction format (like Legions) available in a browser-format, and that the game will be available as a stand-alone as well. Nothing will be changed content-wise, but a lot of the format for things such as images have been changed so that things are now open source or at least not proprietary.

But…no Mac support.

Cause, see, Tribes 1 came out back when Mac was OS 7, and Windows was 95/98. And whereas as much as Microsoft would like to babble about how it’s made such vast changes and improvements to Windows, it just hasn’t made the kind of changes that the Apple OS has going from OS 7-9 to OS X. Which means that to actually release Tribes 1 for the Mac or port it into InstantAction would mean an almost complete rewrite from the bottom up.

And GarageGames just ain’t willing to do that.

So, I’m going to propose something. GarageGames has the source code for Tribes 1. What if some energetic and inspiring group of Mac developers were to pull together and decide that they would actually rewrite Tribes 1 for the Mac, and in exchange, GarageGames would pop it up on InstantAction? This would not just be cool. It would be an example of the power of the Indie game industry at work.

Otherwise, maybe, just maybe, we’d see Tribes 2 for the Mac. I mean, didn’t someone out there almost complete a Mac build and then drop it?

Do you read Fark just so you can Photoshop the images? Do you long to enter image contests, because you get to use your Wacom tablet? Do you love your art design job so much that you take your work home with you? Here is your chance to challenge your skills in the Official iGame Radio Logo Contest!

Launched today, the logo contest seeks everyone with an itch to draw, paint, or move those pixels to create the right design for a new logo for the iGame Radio Podcast. But you better get started, because the deadline is April 10, 2009. After I announce the winner, I’ll be relaunching the site with a new design based on the logo design.

All information about the contest, including rules for format and submission, are located at the the Official iGame Radio Logo Contest page. I’ve also included resource material in case you’re new to design work, or just want a refresher course. The contest will run for two months, after which the logo will be chosen by public acclaim. A prize package valued at over $500 will be offered…more details will be available as the contest proceeds.

So get yer Photoshop skills on!

Just finished moving the last of the iGame Word WordPress files into the main iGame Radio folder (igameradio.com), so that it is all merged into one location. Despite the logo at the top that says “iGame Word”, this is now, in fact, the official site of the iGame Radio Podcast. Over the next couple of months I’ll be making more changes…additions to the site that will be cool and wonderful.

The Game Goods Page, that will be an update of the old screenshots page, and include a lot of cool stuff from games just out and games out for a while for people to review.

The Port Page, which will be about games that are not on the Mac yet, but we wish would be. This will be a location not just to drool over screens, trailers, etc of games we want on the Mac, but also to try and do something about that by providing email links to the original developer and publishing company to send them emails about our desire, and a signing a petition to show how many of us are interested in a Mac version.

New Logo and Web design, which I’ll mention more about in the next post.

So, don’t miss out on things…keep coming back because there will be regular postings, and chances for all sorts of cool stuff.

Many of us may be tickled about President Barack Obama’s inauguration festivities yesterday, but that doesn’t mean that politics as usual still doesn’t operate on Capitol Hill. Right now, Congressman Joe Baca (D CA-43) has decided to introduce H.R. 231 which, if passed, would require a warning label be affixed to all games rated T or up by the ESRB, regardless of the content descriptors. The warning would read: `WARNING: Excessive exposure to violent video games and other violent media has been linked to aggressive behavior.’ Yeah, I know of some violent people who play violent video games. Violence tends to attract violence…like attracts like, you know? Unfortunately, many people will make the assumption that “link” means “causal link” which is a very different story, and not backed up by the scientific evidence.

The ECA is making a call for gamers to contact their congressional rep to oppose this bill, and I so definitely agree. First and foremost, we don’t need labels on video games (and indeed on anything else) that seeks only to confuse the issue further. This is nothing more than a scare tactic, rather than seeking to inform parents further about the content of video games. I mean, if a parent is going to buy an M-rated game for their 9 year old, putting this warning label on the game won’t change that one iota. That parent is still going to be, shall we say, less than competent at their job.

What I’m really afraid of is that this label is the first step at the Federal level in taking the job of parenting away from all parents with regards to video games. Once this label is affixed to the games, then a bill could be introduced that punishes retailers, or even parents, for allowing the purchase of any of these games if the end user is one day below the “recommended age” of the rating. Cause, you know, parents all over really don’t know their kids as well as their congressional reps on Capitol Hill.

If you have a question about Macworld that you want answered, or a comment you want to make, post it here. I’ll be happy to answer questions, even going out and locating stuff if you are interested. Want a picture of something? Let me know. Want me to tell you about whether something sucks or not? Tell me, I’m your gopher. Well, maybe not, but this is as close as you’ll get.