http://www.osnews.com/ Exploring the Future of Computing en-us Copyright 2001-2008, David Adams OSNews version 4 donotreply@osnews.com (Adam Scheinberg) donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Sat, 17 May 2008 07:09:53 GMT http://www.osnews.com/images/osnews.gif http://www.osnews.com/ 120 http://www.osnews.com/story/19446/Could_the_iPhone_be_the_Portable_Wii_/ http://www.osnews.com/story/19446/Could_the_iPhone_be_the_Portable_Wii_/ Comparisons between iPhone and the Wii have already been fairly abundant simply because the two have arguably garnered the top spots in"electronic gadget mindshare" for at least a year each. But looking at the demos today, OFB's Timothy R. Butler thinks perhaps the iPhone could be on its way to being the Wii of portable devices-- literally. Sat, 08 Mar 2008 00:23:20 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (David Adams) Games 38 http://www.osnews.com/topics/42 News tbutler http://www.osnews.com/story/19152/SimCitys_Source_Code_Released_Under_GPL/ http://www.osnews.com/story/19152/SimCitys_Source_Code_Released_Under_GPL/ The source code to the original SimCity game has been released under the GPL, with all references to the SimCity name removed due to copyright trademark issues; it is now called Micropolis. You can download the source code, or read a bit more about it. SimCity is one of the most critically acclaimed games in history. Sat, 12 Jan 2008 21:33:58 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Games 17 http://www.osnews.com/topics/42 News http://www.osnews.com/story/19026/Top_10_Free_Linux_3D_Games/ http://www.osnews.com/story/19026/Top_10_Free_Linux_3D_Games/ Addictive 3D games for Linux users to fill their time with. These games are really good and some have won awards or have been featured on magazines. Most are cross platform and all of them completely free. You don't have to use 'Wine' to be able to play as they come with Linux installers. Mon, 10 Dec 2007 07:43:40 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Eugenia Loli-Queru) Games 88 http://www.osnews.com/topics/42 News http://www.osnews.com/story/18881/Nintendo_Stops_Support_for_NES/ http://www.osnews.com/story/18881/Nintendo_Stops_Support_for_NES/ Nintendo has reportedly decided to stop all repairs of the original Nintendo after 24 years of support, Agence France Presse reported on Friday. A spokesperson said that the company has decided to end support due to increasingly short supplies of replacement parts. The iconic game system was sold as the Nintendo Entertainment System in the US and Europe, and as the Famicom in Japan. Nintendo's Ken Toyoda said that while the company is sad to turn its back on the NES, the company wanted its legions of loyal fans to focus on the Wii, currently the best selling next-generation console worldwide. Mon, 05 Nov 2007 23:14:59 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Games 33 http://www.osnews.com/topics/42 News http://www.osnews.com/story/18542/PAX_Technica:_Looking_Back_at_Penny_Arcade_Expo_2007/ http://www.osnews.com/story/18542/PAX_Technica:_Looking_Back_at_Penny_Arcade_Expo_2007/ "It's hard to pin down what exactly the Penny Arcade Expo is. The point isn't to sell anything, although you can buy a lot of games and gaming-related merchandise at the show. The point isn't to hype games that are coming out, although this year many developers and publishers were on hand to do just that. The point isn't to organize tournaments or to win anything, although there were tournaments and many prizes. This year, PAX boasted over 19,000 people in preregistrations alone, and the show outgrew its old home at the Meydenbauer Center in Bellevue, instead taking over the Washington State Convention and Trade Center in Seattle." Thu, 30 Aug 2007 22:13:11 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Games 3 http://www.osnews.com/topics/42 News http://www.osnews.com/story/18077/EAs_Mac_Games_To_Be_Powered_by_Transgamings_Cider/ http://www.osnews.com/story/18077/EAs_Mac_Games_To_Be_Powered_by_Transgamings_Cider/ Despite what many (including myself) thought when EA announced they would support the Mac platform, the games EA will release are actually not native ports - instead, they will use Transgaming's Cider engine, a Wine-like wrapper for running Windows games on Intel Macs. This news was found in a Transgaming press release. Apart from the fact that this might negatively affect performance, it also means PowerPC Macs will not be able to play these games. Tue, 12 Jun 2007 19:36:28 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Games 61 http://www.osnews.com/topics/42 News atezun http://www.osnews.com/story/17948/Blizzard_Announces_StarCraft_II/ http://www.osnews.com/story/17948/Blizzard_Announces_StarCraft_II/ We usually don't report on games, but I would like to make an exception today. Blizzard Entertainment has announced the sequel to what many see as the best realtime strategy game ever made: they announced StarCraft II. The original StarCraft, released in 1998, tops many best-games-of-all-times lists, and has sold over 9 million copies worldwide; it is still one of the most popular online games, despite its age. In fact, in South Korea, StarCraft matches are even broadcast on TV. Sat, 19 May 2007 20:23:23 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Games 104 http://www.osnews.com/topics/42 News http://www.osnews.com/story/17828/Nintendo_Wii:_Competing_Hard/ http://www.osnews.com/story/17828/Nintendo_Wii:_Competing_Hard/ The Wii (pronounced as the pronoun wee) is the fifth home video game console released by Nintendo. The console is the direct successor to the Nintendo GameCube. Nintendo states that its console targets a broader demographic than that of Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3, but it competes with both as part of the seventh generation of gaming systems. Wed, 02 May 2007 10:25:14 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (OSNews Staff) Games 72 http://www.osnews.com/topics/42 Feature Mohit Ranka http://www.osnews.com/story/17766/Project_Aims_to_Bring_DX10_Gaming_to_XP_Linux_OS_X/ http://www.osnews.com/story/17766/Project_Aims_to_Bring_DX10_Gaming_to_XP_Linux_OS_X/ "Last Wednesday, a company called Falling Leaf Systems announced the availability of an alpha of something called the Alky Project. The Alky Project has a lofty goal: to liberate DirectX 10 gaming from the confines of Vista and bring it first to Windows XP, and then to Linux and OS X. The project plans to do this by building a converter that can take in a DX10 game executable and spit out a modified version that can be run on a (non-Vista) target OS. The target OS must be x86-based, which rules out the PPC version of OS X, since the converter doesn't do any binary translation." Wed, 25 Apr 2007 22:13:34 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Games 73 http://www.osnews.com/topics/42 News Flatline http://www.osnews.com/story/17185/Will_Vista_Run_Your_Games_/ http://www.osnews.com/story/17185/Will_Vista_Run_Your_Games_/ "Windows has been the best OS for gamers for years, and Vista takes that to the next level. That's all well and good for games made with Vista in mind, but what about your existing game library? Last May, when Vista was at the Beta 2 milestone, I wrote a feature in which I installed around 15 games on the unfinished OS, describing how well each one worked. Now that Vista is 'done' (in as much as any OS is ever actually finished), it's time to do it again. This time, I'm going to use the final Vista release, a DX10 video card (not that it really matters with no DX10 games), and all the drivers available upon Vista's launch. I'll also take a look at a lot more games, around 25." Tue, 06 Feb 2007 21:50:32 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Games 26 http://www.osnews.com/topics/42 News Jeremy http://www.osnews.com/story/16892/Linux_on_the_PlayStation_3/ http://www.osnews.com/story/16892/Linux_on_the_PlayStation_3/ It is unusual for gaming consoles to allow foreign operating systems to be installed on them. Sony decided to open up the PS3 console and allow third-party operating systems to be installed. Learn how to get started developing for the Cell BE processor on the PS3. This article provides an overview, installation, and first programming steps. Its the easiest way for programmers to get their hands on the new Cell Broadband Engine processor and take it for a drive. Mon, 08 Jan 2007 20:54:59 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Games 15 http://www.osnews.com/topics/42 News anonymous http://www.osnews.com/story/16835/Free_Download_of_Yellow_Dog_Linux_5.0/ http://www.osnews.com/story/16835/Free_Download_of_Yellow_Dog_Linux_5.0/ Those who intend to install a Linux distribution on a Sony PlayStation 3 will be pleased to learn that Yellow Dog Linux 5.0 is now available for free download. Originally released on 27 November, Yellow Dog Linux 5.0 is a Fedora-based distribution tailored to run on Sony PlayStation 3. It features a graphical installation program and includes the Linux kernel 2.6.16, X.Org 7.0 (3D acceleration not supported), Enlightenment 17 as the default desktop (KDE 3.5.3 and GNOME 2.14 are also available), Firefox 1.5, OpenOffice.org 2.0.2 and other popular open source software applications for desktops, servers, media playback and software development. Thu, 28 Dec 2006 22:21:49 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Games 19 http://www.osnews.com/topics/42 News http://www.osnews.com/story/16803/Building_a_Game_Engine_with_Cocoa/ http://www.osnews.com/story/16803/Building_a_Game_Engine_with_Cocoa/ Classic board games like Checkers are hard to beat, but after so many holiday seasons and family get-togethers, variety becomes essential. Lines of Action (LOA) is a game slightly off the beaten path that you can play with an ordinary Checkers set the next time you decide to dust it off--but in the meantime, let's fire up Xcode and build a small game engine for playing board games like Checkers and LOA using some artificial intelligence. Sun, 24 Dec 2006 01:36:09 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Eugenia Loli-Queru) Games 1 http://www.osnews.com/topics/42 News http://www.osnews.com/story/16672/Nintendo_Wii_Launched_in_Europe_UK/ http://www.osnews.com/story/16672/Nintendo_Wii_Launched_in_Europe_UK/ Today, Nintendo released its Wii console in Europe and the UK, meaning the launch is now complete. The Inq has a set of photos of the device, comparing it to the Xbox 360, while El Reg has a review of the oddball among the new game consoles. Fri, 08 Dec 2006 20:52:37 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Games 14 http://www.osnews.com/topics/42 News http://www.osnews.com/story/16545/Sony_PlayStation_3:_the_Ars_Technica_Review/ http://www.osnews.com/story/16545/Sony_PlayStation_3:_the_Ars_Technica_Review/ Ars reviews the PlayStation 3 personal computer game console, and they say: "The PS3 doesn't have any grand ideas; Sony wanted something high-tech, so they started from scratch with the processor and GPU, but what does it get them? Very little so far. The controller is a mash-up of ideas from their old systems, the 360's triggers, and the Wii's motion-sensing capabilities, but once it has that tech it doesn't really know what to do with it. The Blu-ray adds cost, but adds very little to the gaming experience for the user. It's great as a media player, but for those of us who love games first and foremost, we have to look at it skeptically. The PS3 is a system with no core message, and that is what keeps it from being elegant. Will it do great things in the future? I hope so, the possibility and potential are certainly there. For now, it's power looking for a mission statement." Wed, 22 Nov 2006 22:50:51 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Games 79 http://www.osnews.com/topics/42 News