Quakecon '07 fast approaching

Well, it appears that it is that time. The time when the Sanitarium will get some actual hands on testing of new software and try to post some original content rather than my usual bit of pablum. Quakecon 2007 is in town starting Thursday and of course I'll be there. With no Quake Wars officially out yet though there's no need to go to the BYOC so I'll eschew that in favor of just going to a few of the speeches and then go back to the safety of my own place rather than stay in Downtown Dallas.

What I do not understand and do not like is why has the keynote speaker address been pushed to the early evening. In the past the Carmack spoke in the early afternoon on Friday rather than at night. Perhaps that's the only time he can talk after a hard day of building rockets or handheld RPG games. Whatever the case they didn't consult me so that's that.

Items of interest this year:
1. Left4Dead being shown. A bit odd that a Valve based game would at Quakecon but nothing to get all up in arms about. I know nothing about this game but I do know that one of the people showing it off (Chet) so perhaps I can speak with him a little bit about the game beyond the basic plot (shoot zombies). Let me clarify that. When I say I know Chet I'm not saying that he and I are best buddies sharing war stories at the local VFW lodge but I know he runs some sites that I visit and of course he was one of the masterminds behind Old Man Murray.

2. Carmack speaks on Friday at 6:00PM to 8:30PM CST. If this is like the past few years the first 20 or 30 minutes will be understandable to the general populace but by the 45 minute mark if you don't have a degree in computer science you are out of luck.

3. idTech5 Preview Saturday at 3:30-4:00PM CST. Probably just a rehash of what they did at the Apple expo.

Look behind you, you done crossed the line.

While I will freely admit that I had planned to go the Quakecon LAN Party this year (no Quake Wars now though so no reason to haul equipment up there), I'm completely and totally befuddled as to why Gabe over at Penny Arcade would admit and even follow through with going to a Pokemon tournament. They've posted a lot of weird stuff on their site over the years but those posts for 7/23 actually made me shudder.

To each his own of course but that just weirded me out a little bit. The lesson: listen to the wife.

Spielberg and EA

The following is my working theory as to how Spielberg and EA are teaming up to make a game or two.

Spielberg and EA CEO John Riccitiello are sitting by the pool of Spielberg's place being fanned with one thousand dollar bills by Jamaican helper girls. They're both having a good laugh about how well each of them is doing. EA has been taking larger and larger chunks of the game market and Spielberg of course just had a hand in the making of Transformers.

"I tell ya Stephen, your Transformers movie was spectacular, the kids are eating it up."

"Thanks we really tried to make a good movie even if the cameraman appears to be having epileptic seizures. Ah well that's Michael Bay for you sometimes. I'm really trying to find a new thing to do though."

"I hear ya Stephen. Sometimes games are just so boring anymore. Sure our ads make them SEEM like it's something new and exciting but really they aren't."

"Funny you should say that, I told Lucas the same thing about the dialog in the most recent Star Wars movies."

Both men laugh and take another sip of their Mai Tais.

"You know Stephen, you and I could help each other. Why not come over and create a game. We'll feed some crap to the press." The EA CEO pulls out his random word generator, a necessary tool anymore to create new ad blitz campaigns for the most recent Madden which hasn't changed much since 1990.

"Ah here's how we can describe it. '[name to be determined] is a contemporary action-packed adventure that puts you in the leading role of an emotional journey where your actions tell the tale. Set against the backdrop of an epic story, the game focuses on a touching and ever-changing relationship between you and a mysterious female character who holds the key to many futures.'"

"I like it," Spielberg says as he throws up a little in his own mouth realizing what a waste of carbon the EA CEO really is. But, at the very least he can make a few more million dollars and get the kids that 20 lane bowling alley they keep bitching about.

An unnoticed Windows patch for X2 CPU users

Techspot gives a heads up about a little known patch Microsoft put out for their operating system if you are a user of a dual core Intel processor. I would suggest setting up a system save point on your machine or doing a full backup before running this since this type of patch is getting into some deep stuff with where Windows and the hardware interact. Microsoft site has the patch here