Valve: PC Gaming is where all the action is

Gabe Newell

We’ve had all sorts of articles going on lately about how PC gaming is “dying”. Valve doesn’t think so. At a press event in Bellevue, Washington, Valve held steadfastly to their love of the PC and declared it as a robust and relevant gaming system. Gabe Newell went so far as to say that “[the] PC is where all the action is, and there’s a perception problem”.

It seems that Valve is placing emphasis on Steam and other online software distribution methods, and with good reason. Citing figures, Newell said that DFC Intelligence data showing that PC online sales have been on an increase since 2001, while retail sales comparatively flat. Valve also expects online sales to overtake retail very soon.

An interesting statement he makes is,

“We don’t really have a champion of the PC platform. If you write a story about the Xbox 360, there’s just an army of people who are going to descend on you to make that picture look as polished and rosy as possible. Same things for the other consoles – but there’s no equivalent on the PC, and the people who are traditionally driving these messages, like Microsoft or Intel or Apple are, for various reasons, not very effective champions.”

As we say from Valve’s latest announcement of Steam Cloud, Valve has been pretty aggressive on establishing the PC as the best video game platform out there. It’s time they got some support!

WTF: Choose Your Own Adventure: Pong

There are some times when I am utterly shocked. I am at a loss of words. “What would you call this?” I ask myself. Is it the most utterly depressing thing that has ever happened to entertainment media, or is it the most ingenious idea ever? This is definitely one of them. The name itself should be enough to satisfy your curiosity: Choose Your Own Adventure: Pong.

It has all the gameplay of Pong, translated into paper format. You turn pages to determine the moment of your bat. The ball remains ominously stationary on each page, its position entirely dependant on what choice you make next, whether you go up or (urp) down. A truly epic adventure. Its something you’ve never experienced before.

This sort of stuff makes us wonder as to what went through the creator’s mind when he thought of it. How could he hope to sell it to anyone without as much free time as himself? Perhaps that is why he lets you “read” the excellent adventure book cover-to-cover in the free online viewer that we have helpfully embedded below.

Go ahead, enjoy your adventure!

Disaster Movie poster looks disastrous

Disaster Movie snippet

In what is the most accurate movie title in the franchise, Aaron Seltzer and Jason Friedberg present the next in line to their already disaster line of movie spoofs: Disaster Movie. We have the poster right here, and while it has a mildly good take on The Day After Tomorrow, the movie will have to be much, much better to offset the… well, disappointment (yes, too weak a word) from Meet the Spartans and- who are we kidding? The entire goddamn franchise.

The cast features Kim Kardashian and Carmen Electra, for the booby goodness. Matt Lanter (the voice of Anakin from the upcoming Star Wars: Clone Wars TV series!) will be starring, with Nicole Parker and more people from the same bandwagon.

I, for one, am getting tired of this pricks. Its rime there are either really good Hollywood spoofs or none at all. It would probably be funny to see a “Spoof Movie” from someone other than Seltzer and Friedberg. Oh, and click the thumbnail below for the full-size poster, courtesy Cinematical.

Disaster Movie