This is the Telectroscope, an art installation designed by Paul St George and produced by Artichoke, the same folks responsible for the absolutely amazing Little Girl Giant a couple years back. We were (obviously) at the Brooklyn end; the connecting end was set up in London, giving visitors at each location the opportunity to view and wave hello to the other side.
The Telectroscope installation ran from May 22 to June 15, 2008.
Today’s the day we celebrate our independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain. Take that, redcoats. For the locals, it’s also First Friday!
Too many games? Michael Zenke thinks so, Sean Hollister disagrees.
Neat, a NES in a NES cartridge. [via MAKE]
Can you believe that Anarchy Online has been around for seven years? To celebrate the longevity, Konami and FunCom have released a retrospective vid.
Throughout 2001 and early 2002 there ran a narrative experiment on Kuro5hin.org, a series of diaries by a user purporting to be Captain Alan Ledford, a run-of-the-mill starship freighter pilot who would drop in and publish the occasional account of his life and experiences as he hopped about space.
Totaling thirteen diaries over the year and a half (plus a final entry a couple years later, revealing the author and leading to a now-dead website), these sporadic stories were a highlight of K5 during that time, weaving a compelling tale within the everyday cacophony and discord of the diary section.
With apologies to K5 user tiamet whose 2003 article I’m paraphrasing, here are the Diaries of Captain Ledford:
Entry 1: How the hell do you figure the stardate, anyway?
I never did get the hang of keeping track of time out here. I suppose it’s because I never have to meet anyone, and nothing I ship is important enough to qualify as a rush delivery.
Things I have on board right now, for those interested:
Entry 2: Letter-opening
So my holo broke down today. There I was, talking to the first sentient being I’d seen in days, and the damn thing just stops working. I had to rush over to the old-fasioned viewscreen-type communicator before she left – the alternative being waiting around until the next ship happens to float by.
Entry 3: Finally got in
Got into station the day before yesterday, but I hardly had any time to relax then; deliveries are always a pain. I’d say it has something to do with the Tannanti tendency toward being completely meticulous about every little thing, only it isn’t because every Tannanti I’ve ever met is just as lazy as I am. It’s more to do with the fact that Outward Station, like nearly every sane station that I know of, has contracted out Receiving to some nameless corporation whose job it is to be completely meticulous about every little thing.
Entry 4: Will Work For Pay
Someone, get me off this station.
Entry 5: Got my travel on
My current run is from Outward Station to Poln, a tiny little planet just colonized whose people have decided they want a space station (they’ll probably call it something like ‘Outward Station’.) As my ship, great and powerful though it may be, is in no way capable of towing all the equipment which will be used to build the station, I’m doing escort work for the Hugeass Construction Corporation fleet of tugs.
Entry 6: Yotian Anomoly
Okay, I’m not famous, but I am old. And in this business, if you’ve survived this long, you automatically earn a certain amount of respect.
Nostalgia edition, this one is.
Here is a Barbie that I will buy, and I will feel no shame. When do we get to see the wheelchair-bound Rear Window Ken?
Ask Slashdot: Best Electronics Kits for Adults?
Branded in the 80s, the website for those of us who were kids during the decade, now comes in magazine form.
The latest opus from Greencine: Drive-In Movies: A Primer.
From the dtoid community blogs, Zac Bentz tells us a NES story.
Okay, I’ll end this with a couple nowadays bits:
Check out Gridgnome’s amazing Spore creatures! [via Soren]
Read the Indie platformer extravaganza on Mefi! [via GameSetWatch]
I think I’ve mentioned it before, but let me clarify. I did not own a Playstation until the mid 2000s, and finally bought a PS2 this year. I was raised a BBS and PC gamer, first with an Atari 400, then an Amiga 500, followed by a Powermac 7100, and culminating with a move to the Windows platform shortly before the launch of the Everquest beta. In fact, aside from the family NES, the first new console I owned was an Xbox, in 2002.
Along with a desire to dedicate time towards revisiting classics and old favorites, this lack of experience with what many would consider to be the glory days of the console has played a significant role in shaping the roster that would become my 2008 play list.
Along with the Metal Gear Solid games, a series that I’ll be taking up shortly, one of the key entries in my pile of shame (I’ve been collecting the games for the play list for some time now) was Final Fantasy VII.
I did experience a bit of Final Fantasy VII back in 1997. There was what came to be a communal Playstation at a friend’s house, and through that year and the next I either watched or played through maybe 8-10 hours of the game, was familiar with most of the summons, and knew bits of the story. Still, I’d never sat down and actually played the game (or most of the other games in the series, for that matter, as the only two I’d played through until recently were the original Final Fantasy Tactics and Final Fantasy X), and as such, I don’t have the intense familiarity and nostalgia with the Square Enix juggernaut that many gamers do.
Thanks to custom firmware and a couple of handy applications, I was able to rip my copy of Final Fantasy VII and play on the PSP, the four inch screen giving the graphics less of a dated feel. While the game does have moments where you are forced to navigate off in the background, rendering Cloud as a diminutive heap of pixels in the distance, overall the game felt at home on the portable, and ran without a hitch.
Total time from the main theme to finale was nearly 40 hours, and that was with minimal attention given to ancillary objectives such as Chocobo collecting, Fort Condor battles, or the various Gold Saucer challenges. Of the secret characters, I welcomed Vincent into the party but managed to tell off Yuffie, causing her to run off into the forest, never to be seen again.
I had wondered how the story and would hold up after these years and without nostalgia to bolster it, and was left pleasantly surprised. Sure, Final Fantasy VII has its over the top moments and bouts of melodramatic silliness (it wouldn’t be a JRPG without ’em), but the chord of solid (and serious) storytelling held true throughout. While Aeris’ death — one of the most talked about moments in gaming history — was in no way a surprise, it was still affecting, and I felt for Cloud (er, driph), Barret, Tifa, Red XIII, and the rest of the cast, hoping that things would go well for them as their journeys progressed. Nobuo Uematsu’s soundtrack, backed by solid pacing and extraordinary cinematography, was effective and moving, and now that I’m able to connect the sounds with the moments I understand the emotional attachment many have to tracks such as “Aeris’ Theme” and “One-Winged Angel.”
My quibbles with the game are few. Mini-games, of which there were plenty, were a diversion at best and tedious at worst, although some, like the Fort Condor battles, were surprisingly sophisticated for playing such a minor role in the presentation. The random battles were bothersome but not gamebreakers, although I will admit to some tense (and impatient) moments running from point A to point B, cringing as the battle theme suddenly spooled up and the screen swirled. Finding just where to step was aggravating at times, the optional cue points an absolute necessity, although a healthy chunk of the blame can be attributed to playing the game on a screen it was never intended for.
So what’s next? Well, I’m already an hour into and enjoying the fan-service-heavy Crisis Core, to be followed by an evening spent with Final Fantasy VII Advent Children, Square Enix’ 2005 followup film. I’m even considering a run through the much-maligned Dirge of Cerberus, although I have a feeling I’ll have reached my fill of VII by that point. For now, I’m hooked, and while I wouldn’t go so far as to call myself a fanboy, I am a fan.
I’m still utterly baffled by the exorbitant prices the discs fetch on ebay, though. 9.5 million copies of the game were sold, people! 9.5 million!
Final Grade: A