This is the sort of thing one does with an unexpected helping of newfound free time.

Tumblr!

Site redesign incoming! Gonna flip the color palette, brighten up the place a bit, and add a tumblr feed for the little bits of gaming and personal detritus that flow through the ol’ browsing baleen every day.

For an early start, go here: driph.tumblr.com.

Living in Las Vegas

“The night before I left Las Vegas, I walked out in the desert to look at the moon. There was a jeweled city on the horizon, spires rising in the night, but the jewels were diadems of electric and the spires were the neon of signs ten stories high.” – Norman Mailer

So you’ve just visited, or maybe you’re looking at one of the jobs we’ve got listed at Jet Set, and you wonder… how is life on a daily basis out there in Las Vegas, what is it like to actually live in the city? As most tourists rarely travel beyond the gilded embrace of the Strip, it’s a valid question. Let me tell you about our town.

If you come from back east, or another continent, chances are that your house has been around longer. While Las Vegas was originally founded (and soon abandoned) in the 1850s by Mormon missionaries, it wasn’t until the early 1900s that folks started moving in — first with the railroad, then the building of Hoover Dam, legalized gambling, and the military. These days, the oldest homes, mostly in the heart of downtown, tend to be from the 1940’s, while the majority of dwellings hail from the building booms of the last several decades.

Fun Fact: Remnants of the Old Mormon Fort still exist, you can visit it at Heritage Park, located in Cashman Field just north of the Strip.

Right then, so there’s your quick history lesson. What about Las Vegas now? What does Las Vegas have to offer you?

Let’s begin with a big one: there’s no state income tax in Nevada. Right off the bat you’ve given yourself a raise. Not a bad start, eh?

It’s also a good time to get a house, cheap. Yeah okay, that’s the case in a lot of places, but it’s especially true here. We had ourselves a serious housing bubble and the industry went bananas on home construction for a few years, and as a result there are some great finds to be had. There are also plenty of nice apartments, and local rent is very reasonable.

Despite the summer heat, we’ve got a fantastic outdoor scene. There’s year-round hiking in Mount Charleston, and Red Rock and Valley of Fire are beautiful in the spring and fall. Both the Las Vegas Ski Resort and Lake Mead are less than 45 minutes away, and Zion and Brian Head are within a three hour drive.

Fun Fact: There is a WWII-era bomber viewable locally by those with enough dedication to reach it. A B-29 was ditched in 1948, and still sits at the bottom of Lake Mead.

Thanks to the casino industry, we’ve found ourselves with some spectacular shows and concerts. Several Broadway productions have played for a time, or call Las Vegas home. Cirque du Soleil is a Las Vegas staple. The local music scene is strong, and national acts are always passing through.

We’re one of the best cities in the country to find someplace good to eat, with a huge variety of both celebrity chef and mom ‘n pop establishments in the valley. A lot of the high end restaurants are within the resorts, but there are plenty of stunning eateries off-Strip, too.

Las Vegas has a burgeoning art scene. We’ve got a lot of galleries (including a new one founded by our own Brett Sperry), and some amazing local collections. A chunk of downtown has become known as the 18b Arts District, and every month it transforms into a lively night-time art festival known as First Friday.

You’ll find sports here, too. There’s the Las Vegas Motor Speedway, with NASCAR, touring events, and local opportunities for drag racing and autocross. Our ECHL hockey team, the Las Vegas Wranglers, is one of the strongest in the league, and UNLV’s Division I teams always put on a good show.

For the particularly geek-friendly, we’ve got Tim Arnold’s Pinball Hall of Fame, a huge (and playable) collection of pinball and arcade machines, the Atomic Testing Museum, the Hoover Dam internals Tour, CineVegas (one of the fastest growing film festivals in the world) and one of the best comic book shops on this side of the country. Additionally, CES, DICE Summit, Defcon, Classic Gaming Expo, and the Evo Championships all take in Las Vegas.

Fun Fact: It’s pronounced Nevada.

I’ve just skimmed the surface, but that should be enough to keep ya covered for a bit, so let’s call this post done. Wanna know anything else about living in Las Vegas? Ask away!

HoN Stats

HoN Stats, a little Heroes of Newerth stat tracking app that a friend and I having been tinkering with on the side, is now live.

Parrot’s AR.Drone at CES

Heading between halls, I stopped by the Parrot tent to see the AR.Drone, their iPhone-piloted quadricopter that’s been building buzz all through CES.

Flying the copter is really easy — you’ll hear the demoer (a member of the drone’s dev team) explain the controls in the video below — and while I didn’t get to try any of the augmented reality games, the piloting app and craft’s movements were fluid and responsive.

I do wish they’d had two drones up and running to allow folks to duel, as I wonder how difficult it’s going to be for players to maintain the drone’s orientation while flying aggressively and constantly looking up and down from the craft (and opposing drones) to the iPhone.

Inquired about gaining a seat in Parrot’s dev program, as the AR.Drone would be a blast to design for, but not sure if we’d want to throw down the $1200 entry fee for an entirely unproven device just yet.

Still, as long as Parrot can price the AR.Drone reasonably for retail, this thing is gonna be a hit.

CES: Places to get hammered that aren’t casinos.

Just thought I’d share. You know, for the kids.

Downtown Cocktail Room (map)

Right across from the Fremont St Experience, near the corner of Fremont and Las Vegas Blvd. Modern decor, moody lighting, and often a DJ spinning house or downtempo. DCR has fancy drinks, by an actual mixologist, and their Bloody Mary is supposed to be damn good, if you’re the sort that likes salad in your alcohol.

The Griffin (map)

More cozy to DCR’s swanky, but often catering to similar crowds. Brick and leather interior, a nice firepit, and good music. On Fremont St just east of the Fremont St Experience.

Beauty Bar (map)

Yep, we’ve got one here too. Right around the corner from the others listed above, on Fremont. Mmm, hipsters.

Double Down Saloon (map)

Happiest place on earth! On Paradise nuzzled right within the closest thing Vegas has to a gay district… kick ass jukebox, and an excellent alternative during CES if the downtown bars are slammed. Always a good vibe, even with Alfonzo and the midget porn gone.

Frankie’s Tiki Room (map)

A new bar by P Moss (owner of the Double Down), Frank’s Tiki Room is a tiny place just west of Las Vegas Blvd, on Charleston. As the name suggests, it’s wall to wall tiki, with a menu full of custom drinks. Possibly enchanted.

Peppermill Fireside Lounge (map)

It’s the Peppermill, been here for years and years. It has a fountain that is also on fire. Due to it’s Strip location, expect it to be crazy busy over CES, unless you go around 3am (which, to be honest, is really the best time to visit the Peppermill).

The iPhone games I play.

Or less succinctly, the iphone games that continue to maintain a prominent position in screens four and five (where games go, between day-to-day and apps in development) at the start of 2010, even though I’ve got other games that I really should be playing and/or researching instead.

Cobra Command ($4.99)

The iPhone has seen the rerelease of several classics from the laserdisc arcade era, including the Dyer and Bluth collaborations Space Ace and Dragon’s Lair, and while the mentioned games are both worth reliving, Cobra Command, a laserdisc title I played only once as a kid, is the only one I keep coming back to regularly.

Licensed and released for the iPhone by Revolutionary Concepts, Cobra Command somewhat straddles a laserdisc genre that had split into two camps: fully animated narratives stitched together scene by scene (with progression more or less based on a series of quicktime events), and more traditional arcade shooters with animated scenery and backgrounds (think Astron Belt or M.A.C.H. 3). The result is a visually interesting game requiring more skill and less rote memorization (although plenty of that is needed to), leading to its longer lifespan on my iPhone.

Zen Bound (currently on sale for $1.99)

One of my first iPhone game purchases, and still one of my all-time favorites, Zen Bound plays to the strengths of the device, making clever use of tilt without the control scheme feeling gimmicky or tacked on at the insistence of a marketer’s bullet point.

As a bonus, the full soundtrack, written by downtempo artist Ghost Monkey, is freely available to purchasers of the app (click on Secret Exit in the main menu and enter your email address for a download link).

Hell, even the UI is fantastic.

Canabalt ($2.99)

The opposite of Zen Bound, Semi Secret’s Canabalt is frantic, maddening, and addictive, with distilled one-button gameplay and music by indie darling (and all-around good guy) Danny Baranowsky.

Version 1.2, now available, adds a new music track, new obstacles, and leaderboards (with a current and ungodly world high score of 367,562 meters).

Hot tip: tapping with my index finger instead of my thumb increased my top score by over 10,000. I’m told it has something to do with reaction timing, and why the same finger is used to time laps on a stopwatch.

Hi, How Are You (currently on sale for $.99)

Based on the work of artist and musician Daniel Johnston, Hi, How Are You is a solidly constructed surreal platformer with Q*bert mechanics.

The crew at Dr. Fun Fun has done an excellent job translating Daniel’s output into playable form, and the result is a smile inducing experience. While I’m not a fan of the default tilt control scheme, the alternative virtual d-pad feels and controls just fine.

Oh, and if you haven’t seen the 2006 documentary The Devil and Daniel Johnston, rent that first, then play the game.

Space Invaders Infinity Gene ($4.99)

Props to Taito for really knocking it out of the park with this one. Space Invaders oozes style, and is by far my favorite of all the classic gaming rehashes now available on the iPhone.

My only disappointment is that the extra use-your-own-music mode spits out levels based on metadata, rather than giving us the music-matching procedurally generated levels of games like Audiosurf and Vib-Ribbon. Still, awesome game.

PAC-MAN Championship Edition ($2.99)

Ported from the 2007 Xbox Live release designed by original game creator Toru Iwatani, PAC-MAN Championship Edition adds time and skill challenges, wrapping the PAC-MAN concept in a new veneer of slick presentation and sound. While virtual d-pads can be rough on a twitch-based game like this, Namco offers four variations, allowing the player to decide which is most comfortable (I prefer Type 2, seen above).

One of four different Namco iPhone games based on the PAC-MAN license, this is the one you’ll want to go with.

Stocking Stuffers

I found some coupons in my stocking.

Ahhh yeah!

Aww.

Merry Christmas, internet.

link love 122309

Hurray for game studio holiday breaks! Looking forward to spending the next week catching up on video games, starting a new restoration project, and uh, writing up design docs for work.

A Video Game Timeline (1967-Present)

Last month, Simon Parkin interviewed competitive Street Fighter legend Daigo Umehara. Go read it at Eurogamer.

Jeri Ellsworth is designing and building her own pinball machine. Here’s her progress so far: day 3, day 4, and plastic bending in a toaster oven.

Jason Scott is taking pre-orders for his text adventure documentary GET LAMP. 25% off until the end of December.

Restoring Count-Down: Finished!

As the system that straddled the electromechanical and solid state eras, Gottlieb System 1 pinball machines were, even brand new, notorious for their electronic issues, and now that the components have aged for thirty years, the potential problems have only compounded. There are very few who’d call troubleshooting a System 1 an enjoyable experience, and some techs refuse to work on the machines entirely.

By the time I called Nick at Planet 9 Pinball, I’d rebuilt the power supply, replaced a half dozen of the transistors on the driver board, and had gotten everything up and running but the outhole kicker and a couple other troublesome bits. Unfortunately, I managed to short out the transistor on the bottom of the power supply against its bracket, setting off a minor chain reaction. This is when I called Nick.

He quickly resolved the remaining under-the-playfield issues and was able to get the machine back up and running, but while a testing low voltage issue he inadvertently discovered a bad potentiometer, shorting a handful of chips on the MPU board in the process. I replaced the bad pots, and over the course of the next week he tested and replaced MPU chips one by one until things were (mostly) back to working condition. Plans were made to source the remaining chips (for the display controllers), and Nick went on his way, vowing to never work on another System 1 game again.

[Btw, I highly recommend Planet 9, Nick's a good guy, his rates are reasonable, and he'll slog through the muck to get your machine up and running again.]

Knowing that the playfield mechanics were solid and that this machine would be living with me for years to come, I began to look into some of the more recent System 1 replacement boards developed by boutique outfits and hobbyists in the scene. I’d heard glowing reviews of a modern all-in-one board designed by Pascal Janin, and having just buffered my arcade project coffer with a few parts sales, I took the plunge and ordered his PI-1 X4.

The PI-1 X4 fits into the backbox and replaces the power supply, MPU board, driver board, as well as the three-tone sound board mounted in the front of the cabinet. In addition to replicating the base game functions completely, it adds a whole mess of new features (skill shot, attract mode, free play, multiple high scores with name entry, etc), moves the stored data from battery backup to NVRAM, and corrects many of the faults of the original hardware.

Pascal’s manual was well thought out and installation took maybe 20 minutes. After thoroughly testing everything and setting the parameters via his display menu system, I gave the playfield a quick wipedown, replaced the glass, and played my first game on the fully working machine. Man, did that feel good.

Here’s the PI-1 X4 mounted in the backbox… lots of room leftover!

And finally, after too many hours, a lot of sweat, and a little bit of blood, here’s my finished Count-Down:

Count-Down in the dark! All new playfield lights, including colored LEDs in the inserts and behind the drop target banks:

And a final gratuitous playfield closeup: