The Gadgets Page

Sanrio is creating a massively multi-player online role-playing game (mmorpg) called Hello Kitty Online Game.

Applications for the BETA are now closed and those of us that applied have been asked to create a video saying why we should be chosen. So, I took a few minutes and filmed a video of myself.

I imagined a game of pure unadulterated cuteness without any violence or anything scary, but apparently, there will be monsters. According to their website:

“This game is not just about fighting monsters – there are many activities for players to choose from. Aside from the monster-filled adventure areas, players can dig for ore in a mine, or range the forests to pick fruit from trees. Farming allows you to plant, grow and harvest your own crops; be sure to take good care of your crops so you will have a good harvest, and if you have a healthy farm you can even show it off to your online friends! You can use many other skills like cooking, tailoring, making furniture, and building houses. Commerce with other players will allow you to make a living and – perhaps – even get rich!”

I’m alright with monster-filled adventure areas as long as I can avoid them and just harvest my crops and say hi to Badtz-Maru every day.

“Not only do you have the ability to own a house, but you can arrange it with whatever furniture you want. You can also own pets. When certain monsters are defeated, they may drop “pet cards”, that once used will give the player that particular monster as a pet. As a special treat for players, some Sanrio characters may also become your pets. It is certainly fun to watch them follow you around, but they will also be helpful to the players in various ways, such as for item storage.”

I like the idea of having a trail of pets following me everywhere. Maybe it might be worth it to fight a few monsters if they end up my pets in the end.

Here are some screen shots:

Via: little. yellow. different. – Hello Kitty gets an MMORPG

If you have ever played Guitar Hero or Rock Band, then you have imagined yourself to be a Rock God with the game. The Guitar Zeros, however, are a real band that have harnessed the power of the Guitar Hero controllers and are creating real music with them.

• THE GUITAR ZEROS

You can see them in action here:

They have the complete instructions on how to turn your own Guitar Hero controller into a musical instrument here:

• THE ZERO GUIDE

Using just a laptop computer, a Guitar Hero controller and some software from the Guitar Zeros, you can play music too. You don’t have to take apart your controller and it will still work to play your favorite game. It will just have super-hero abilities when you plug it into your PC.

Via: Guitar Zero is a band that has repurposed the Guitar… (kottke.org)

Guitar Hero was featured heavily on the main floor and was in many booths not sponsored by Harmonix or Red Octane. Guitar Hero already gets me off the couch and pretending I’m a Rock Goddess, but if you didn’t think Guitar Hero made you look silly enough, welcome to Guitar Hero Air Guitar Rocker.

Download this video for your iPod

The Guitar Hero Air Guitar Rocker comes with a magic belt buckle, an amplifier, two guitar picks and an air cartridge of songs.

The belt buckle reads your hand movements and starts the music playing on the amplifier. Guitar Hero Air Guitar Rocker is a dream come true for the professional air guitar fanatic!

As a child, I loved Barbie, but lately I have felt betrayed by Mattel. When I walked up to the Barbie Girls booth at CES this year, this betrayal was seething right on the surface:

“Oh, you’re a blogger. Are you going to write about this?” She pointed at the Barbie Girls MP3 Players. I had seen them in the store.

“No, because they’re lame.”

She didn’t miss a beat. “Well, those might be lame, but this isn’t.” She held up the Barbie iDesign box and lead me over to the computer running it.

I immediately fell in love with Barbie all over again.

Fashion Plate Redeux

Barbie iDesign is the kind of toy that I would have LOVED as a kid. In fact, I had a toy that was very similar as a child called Fashion Plates. It was a coloring fashion toy that used plates to create outfits. I created a million outfits with that game and Barbie iDesign is a totally awesome update to that toy.

Gameplay

The Barbie iDesign is a computer program that runs on Windows and comes with a barcode scanner (called the Style Swiper and conveniently colored in Barbie pink). The Style Swiper reads the fashion plates that are included with the toy. Each plate represents a doll, a background, or a piece of clothing.

You scan in the doll and she shows up on the screen. Then you take a different plate to scan in her outfit and it shows up on the doll. Pants, skirts, tops and footwear are all different kinds of plates that you can choose from. You get a total of 60 cards with the Barbie iDesign, but there are a total of 200 available for separate purchase to augment your collection.

Once you’ve chosen a few outfits and dolls, you can have them walk down the catwalk in an Uncanny Valley extravaganza!

Download this video for your iPod

The strange little girl that I was would have systematically created every possible outfit and showcased it on the catwalk. Boots with swimming suits? YES… I must create each and every combination and walk it down the red carpet! I can even feel the adult in me wanting to play this game just so I can create every outfit. Quick, what is 60 factorial?! How many permutations are there?!

The additional card packs add even more permutations and are organized by style of dress. For the younger girls in your family, there is a princess pack with enough frilly dresses and crowns to please.

The fun doesn’t end with the fashion show, though. There were other games to play with the cards. You can play them against a friend or you can fight the clock alone. They were mostly games in which you were frantically searching through the cards trying to find the correct one to scan to get a good score. They didn’t look like they were intellectually taxing. Just fun.

The pieces of the iDesign looked pretty sturdy. I tried scraping off the barcode on the side of the cards to see if they were easily damaged, but they are printed well, so you won’t have to worry about your little girl breaking her toy. The worst you have to worry about is losing the cards.

Hacking

The most exciting idea I had was hacking this game. Trying out different bar codes to see what they create in the game was the first idea I had when I saw the iDesign. The easiest hack you can do is to photocopy the bar codes on the back of your friend’s cards so you don’t have to buy the additional packs. The only negative to that is that there is a lot of real world play that you do with the cards and since they are transparent, a picture of them isn’t good enough.

There is some hacking fun to be had with this game and I can’t wait to see what the girls of today do with their iDesign toys.

Complete 180

I walked up to the Barbie Girls booth feeling betrayed by Mattel and Barbie and walked away wishing I knew a little girl who I could buy iDesign for. I guess I’ll just have to buy it for myself…

Halo 3 hasn’t been out for very long, but it seems the the ability-divide among the good players and the bad players has already been established. A player with less time on his hands than others stumbled across an amazing insight in which suicide bombing makes sense.

• Suicide Bombing Makes Sick Sense in ‘Halo 3’

Reading about war isn’t the same as fighting one, even if the war is imaginary.

But the fact remains that something quite interesting happened to me because of Halo. Even though I’ve read scores of articles, white papers and books on the psychology of terrorists in recent years, and even though I have (I think) a strong intellectual grasp of the roots of suicide terrorism, something about playing the game gave me an “aha” moment that I’d never had before: an ability to feel, in whatever tiny fashion, the strategic logic and emotional calculus behind the act.

He found that when you have so little to live for compared to your enemy, suicide bombing makes sense:

The structure of Xbox Live creates a world composed of two classes — haves and have-nots. And, just as in the real world, some of the disgruntled have-nots are all too willing to toss their lives away — just for the satisfaction of momentarily halting the progress of the haves. Since the game instantly resurrects me, I have no real dread of death in Halo 3.

How do we end suicide bombings? Make the lives of the “have-nots” worth living.

Via: random($foo)

Ah… Geeks in love. It makes my heart go pitter-patter.

• WWdN: In Exile: drink beer, insert coin

Wil Wheaton took his wife to an arcade for beer and video games. It had been years since he had gone to an arcade. So long that he had a new video game enemy to contend with:

My most recent game, however, was a disaster for me. I didn’t even break 3000 points, while Anne cleared the first three boards on her first man, on her way to a 17000 point score. It turns out that Guinness, while certainly delicious and filled with the cure for what ails you, slows down your reaction time.

Yes, if you have ever needed to know whether or not you’re too drunk to drive, just try to play your favorite video game. If you can get the kind of score you usually get, then you’re probably safe to drive. Dollars to donuts, however, you’ll probably tank before you get past the first level.

I’ve forgotten how fun it is to just go to an arcade and play video games. I’ve been playing games at home for so long that I’m actually kind of wary of going back to the arcade where strangers can watch me play.

If you can get past the slightly off-key singing, this is pretty funny!

I haven’t had a really good game for the Wii since Rayman. I’m waiting for Animal Crossing for the Wii. It’s about time for a new one.

Press Play On Tape used to be the Geekiest Band in the World because they used to only play video game songs. They got some competition in that category, so they took it up a notch.

They are the Geekiest Band in the World because they play only video game songs on GAME CONTROLLERS!

Here is a list of the controllers they used:

• Guitar Hero controller
• PS/2 controller
• Xbox controller
• Donkey Congas from Nintendo Gamecube
• Synth controller that they got with a really stupid game, but it’s a cool controller
• Dance Dance Revolution dance mat
• Atari controller

Next time anyone says that video games are a waste of time, I’m going to smack them upside the head.

Via: Email submission from Stacey Vest. Thanks, Stacey!

I laughed out loud at this segment of Wil Wheaton’s PAX ’07 Keynote:

He talks about his first exposure to the NES game system as a child. After hours of playing, his parents pulled them away from the games:

When we were in the car, my brother said, “Mom! Dad! That Intendo is GREAT!”

“It’s Nintendo, Jerry,” I said in my very best serious and mature voice, “and it’s probably the most advanced computer system that will ever be made.”

Wil says that if you can only attend one conference a year, it should be PAX (the Penny Arcade Expo). Since E3 has become such a snooze-fest, he might be right.

The most frustrating thing for me as a gamer is there are so few games that are appealing. The games that are meant to be for the female market concentrate on things like shopping, talking to friends or being a veterinarian. I’m an adult female. I don’t care about shopping for clothes, choosing a career, or talking to friends at school. I also don’t care about killing enemies or racing fast cars.

Strangely, my favorite game, Animal Crossing: Wild World, IS about shopping, talking to little animals and crossbreeding flowers. How did Nintendo capture my fancy, while the Bratz series just makes me angry?

It’s the writing.

Animal Crossing is one of THE best written games I’ve ever played. I keep playing for the writing. When is the gaming industry going to realize that writing is THE most essential element? It is far more important than realistic graphics or physics. As soon as the gaming industry learns that they need to involve writers BEFORE they start programming the game, they will be able to capture the female market, or at least me.