“Build-A-Bearville offers a customizable avatar, home and spaces for players to interact with each other. Only players who designate each others as friends can chat freely, with all other discussion keyword based ‘safe chat’. Players can play games and embark on quests to earn “Bear Bills” which can be used to purchase clothes and furniture in in-world stores.”

Build-A-Bearville is for kids who like Build-A-Bears. For that purpose, it is rather good. And that’s about it!

“Since an enlarged heart is such a dangerous medical condition, how on earth do Pixar get away with causing people’s hearts to swell so much with each of their new releases? With Wall*E, the tale of a lonely little robot that falls in love, we’re worried our chests will burst right there in the cinema! It just sounds too adorable.”

I have now seen Wall*E, and lo, my heart did swell till it was almost painful.

I am also pleased with that title; has anyone else referenced a Spectrum game when talking about the latest Pixar film? Probably, yes. But give me my moment in the sun.

Oh, and can’t forget to mention my post on the Toronto Independent Game Development Jam: TOJam and Cheese. Good games by Shawn McGrath, Jon Mak and Benjamin Rivers are available to download!

“…This conclusion is unusual, because it takes only a very short amount of research to find that two of the tracks from Crystal Castles listed above—”Mother Knows Best” and “Loving and Caring”—feature unapproved samples and are commercially available.”

I’m posting about this article before my Film Friday because, well, it’s important enough to stand up on its own. As this is my own blog I can state that on one level, this article is as much about my personal feeling that if you’re going to write “journalism on the internet” you should hold yourself to as high a standard as possible, as it is about how Crystal Castles should really admit and apologise for all that they’ve been up to in public rather than just put out more misinformation.

The basic fact is the Pitchfork article that this article is a response to is gob-smackingly bad. It takes maybe ten seconds of research to learn that the conclusion they draw is completely incorrect, and in fact, they’re actually proven wrong by at least one of the articles that they link to!

Some folks I have talked to put this down to an undercurrent of “well these chiptunes artists don’t really matter and Crystal Castles says everything is peachy so let’s just believe them!” Which is pretty likely, I guess. And makes it even worse.

Sigh.

(Oh, and special thanks to David Topping for working with me at length on this article, polishing it up into the tip-top hard journalism it is now.)

“Fresbo World is a socially orientated online world like most others, offering a customizable avatar, a home to decorate and areas in which players can meet and socialize. Players can also arrange events and auction unwanted items, and games are available to play. The world has also been designed to allow users the ability to embed the client on social network pages.”

I guess this was kind of a weird online world to look at, considering its total membership must be in the low thousands. But then why not? It’s an underdog, and I love an underdog!

“For some reason, this year we’re already tired of the summer blockbuster schedule. It’s only mid-June and we’ve already had multiple superhero movies, CGI films, and big-budget comedies. Maybe it’s that desperate urge to not get killed by poor word-of-mouth that leads to another “must see!” movie every week until you can’t remember the last film you were told was “must see!”, but we’re exhausted.”

Includes a review of Peter Lynch’s legendary documentary Project Grizzly. As I say in the article, you must read Troy Hurtubise’s Wikipedia page. I’ve seen a clip of him testing his fire paste, and considering that appears to work, I absolutely want to believe the Angel Light does too…

“There is an online virtual world with a 3D client. Similar to Second Life, the world consists of several islands upon which users can explore and socialize. Users can create items using several provided tools (StyleMaker, Painter ToolKit and Builder ToolKit) though it takes time and costs money to have these placed in the world (through a submissions process) though from that point on users are able to sell these items freely to other players, receiving ‘Therebucks’ in return — which can be exchanged for US dollars in the world’s banks.”

I have forgotten to mention basically all of the interviews I’ve performed for Worlds In Motion, for some reason. So here they are:

Q&A: Marc Theermann On Weblin’s Virtual World Future
Q&A: Abandon Interactive Entertainment’s Ottilie Talks Freaky Creatures
Q&A: virtuMedia’s Jankowski On Polish MMO Timik.pl
Q&A: FlowPlay’s Morton Talks ourWorld Online Environment

Hmm, less than I thought – Well, that’s all the ones I remember, anyway!

“This week’s big summer blockbusters are The Incredible Hulk and The Happening. We have a lot of interest in The Incredible Hulk, simply because it was impossible to traverse downtown last year and not walk into at least one area that “looked like New York” (how to make Toronto look like NY, Hulk style: stick American flags everywhere) and even from the trailer, its “Torontoeyness” is very obvious.”

I wait for the Scott Pilgrim movie with bated breath, as I really want to see Toronto as I know it put on the big screen – not just as a stand in for New York. Edgar Wright is in charge, so I’m sure it will (because we’ll kill him it it doesn’t.)

“Space-based PC MMO EVE Online is five, and in this wide-ranging interview with Gamasutra, CCP executive producer Nathan Richardsson looks at the game’s progress to date, gameplay comparisons with starkly different market leader World Of Warcraft, the lack of female players in-world, and much more.”

I haven’t yet played EVE, as you may be able to tell from my interview – because unlike most articles I’ve read about EVE, it isn’t so steeped in the world it’s impossible for an outsider to understand. I think, anyway.

I will play EVE in future, however, as I’m sure to do it at some point for the Worlds In Motion Atlas. I’ll have to enlist the help of Jim Rossignol!

P.S. You should buy his book!

“The surprise announcement of the impending merger of Activision and Vivendi Games that was announced in December 2007 caused shockwaves throughout the industry that are still being felt now, in mid-2008, as the deal rolls towards completion.

In this in-depth investigation, Gamasutra will be summarizing the details of the merger and look at their moves since the announcement, with commentary from some of the industry’s most respected authorities in their field, including Wedbush Morgan’s Michael Pachter and game attorney Thomas H. Buscaglia.”

A big feature on the biggest news story in the industry, that does a pretty good job summarizing the developments up to this point (if I don’t say so myself!) and has some really nice commentary. Worth a read if you’re into that sort of stuff.

“Gaia Online’s community originally solidified around its forums, and the majority of Gaia Online users still spend most of their time there. However, the site has a massive range of other community options, with customizable avatars and home pages, an online world with towns full of user-owned homes that are just as customizable as the avatars, and games to play (with or against other members of the community).”

I didn’t much like Gaia Online! So I haven’t been trying too many MMOs I do like as part of the atlas, sadly. The main problems with Gaia Online are the interface and the fact it’s incredibly slow and glitchy. Pretty insurmountable problems – maybe it’ll improve, maybe not.