the-inbetween.com [ceci n'est pas]Video games, the web, nerdiness, and a boring life.Picard's Alien Flute- May 23, 2006 Paramout wanted to clear out years of Star Trek junk from its warehouses and have decided that the most efficient way to deal with it is to auction off its overpriced props to overly enthusiastic nerds. The props range from the (cool) actual special effects models of various ships (expected to go for well over $10k!) to some (lame) t-shirt someone wore on the (lame) Star Trek V (expected to go for over $1k !)...http://the-inbetween.com/archives/000513.php E3 Crabtacular- May 17, 2006 Due to the "me too" nature of a lot of game publishers, pretty much every E3 has a very visible trend, like toon shading or World War 2 shooters. The trend that was noticeable this year, to me, was crabs. Yes, crabs. It became very obvious right from the start during Sony's press conference. Microsoft's subsequent showing confirmed it. While the crab-filled games were a vast minority on the showfloor at E3, they remained very...http://the-inbetween.com/archives/000512.php Alpha Geek- May 12, 2006 Several days ago I was browsing the trailers on Apple's site (speaking of which, go see Cache -- good film.) Some were good, some were lousy, some were so-so. One of those trailers that I came across was Alpha Dog. In the first minute of that trailer, before they even started to expose what the movie was about, I noticed one thing that pretty much forever soured the movie for me. Perhaps that's a bit...http://the-inbetween.com/archives/000511.php The Shadowrun Cycle- May 10, 2006 Shadowrun on the SNES was one of my favourite RPGs of the time, precisely because it was just so different from its contemporary Final Phantasy Mana Triggers. While I never did play the non-videogame RPG, I was certainly aware of its universe and I liked it. A mix of dark future cyberpunk with orcs and goblins and magic and high fantasy Sweet. With each generation of consoles, I was disappointed that no one would take...http://the-inbetween.com/archives/000510.php Launch Prices- May 9, 2006 The 3DO console launched with a price of $699.95 USD. The high price reflected the system's "revolutionary technology". It launched into a competitive market with lousy games and poor support, with equally powerful (more so) but substantially cheaper consoles, with better brand recognition, on the horizon. It flopped. The Neo-Geo launched at $649.99 USD with with two joysticks, a memory card, and a single pack-in game. It was a premium priced system for a premium,...http://the-inbetween.com/archives/000509.php E3 Sony PS3- May 9, 2006 With my convenient setup, I was able to watch both game two of the Senators and Sabres series and Sony's E3 press-conference at GameSpot's E3 Live site. When one got dull and boring, I'd focus on the other. I didn't miss much of the hockey game. Perhaps I'm becoming increasingly jaded and I need to lighten up, but the majority of the content that Sony was peddling looked uninspired and dull. After talking sales,...http://the-inbetween.com/archives/000508.php Listening to Your Customers- May 8, 2006 Time magazine has a story about Nintendo at E3, its direction, and some first hand contact with WarioWare Wii. The article is illicitly making its way around the internet. What stood out to me, more than any revelations about the hardware and the games, is one paragraph. But the name Wii not wii-thstanding, Nintendo has grasped two important notions that have eluded its competitors. The first is, Don't listen to your customers. The hard-core gaming...http://the-inbetween.com/archives/000507.php Rising Dollar- May 3, 2006 For the first time in my life, the Canadian dollar has closed at over the 90 cent US mark. Some are predicting that they will be equal in value by next year. Wow. There's a multitude of social-economic effects of this, mostly involving cross-border business, tourism and all that other fun stuff. Whatever. The important question is: what does it matter to me And with the kinds of products that I buy, small media things,...http://the-inbetween.com/archives/000506.php |