| Set On Stun |

From Ctrl+Alt+Del

MIT researchers have shown that people who play video games tend to have larger brains.

Technically, people who play video games have bigger striatum which affects motor skills, acquisition of new skills and react with strategies to deal with changing environments.

From the Fast Company article:

According to Kirk Erickson, a professor of psychology at the University of Pittsburgh and lead author on the study, this is the first time–ever–that the size of a specific region of the brain has been linked to better performance and learning in a real-world task.

Without getting all nerdcore on everyone, I think this shows the evolutionary importance of gameplay has been in human development.  People who play games learn to think abstractly, they perceive situations and stimuli in multiple perspectives and they’re willing to experiment, while retaining what works and what doesn’t.

A study I’d love to see would be one that tracks the ability of gamers to visually multi-task.  From anecdotal evidence, I’d suspect that we are, but then I haven’t seen the data on that study yet.

So, next time someone says you’re rotting your brain away, you now know that you’re actually contributing to the evolution of our species with your superior striatum.

via: FastCompany

Via ClicheQuest.com:

This is just way too good.  One more comic added to my ever-growing list.

Lately, the geekiverse has been all aflutter about Sega’s upcoming game, Aliens vs. Predator.  In fact, few movie franchise video games have really generated more excitement.  In my personal opinion, the first AvP game was probably the best AvP game to date.

With the release of the new trailer (be fore-warned it’s violent, with graphic mutilations, impalations, decapitations, evicerations and puppy-kicking) most of the major video game blogs have reported on it.  The comments on these articles range from excited “OMFG!” to “This is just over the top torture porn”.

As usual, this got me thinking about the marketing of this video game.  Is this blatantly over the top imagery designed to whip up the excited masses into a frothing heap of first day sales?  Does blatantly promoting the violence somehow make gamers look bad?  Is Sega’s marketing brilliant, reprehensible or just somewhere in between?

But first… watch the new trailer.

Got it?  Good.

First, the basics.  All marketing needs to start with an understanding of the target demographic.  Marketers do the research to figure out their audience, their purchasing habits and the desires they want fulfilled.  In this case, these are people (mostly male) who’ve consumed a considerable amount of sci-fi horror material.  They’ve seen the Alien and Predator series along with the AvP movies that followed them.  A portion of that audience reads the graphic novels, played the games and continue to debate in fan forums.

The second part of marketing that I want to focus on is the fact that marketers are tasked in describing what the consumer will actually get when they purchase the product.  Some games, like Brutal Legend were promoted as a kick-ass slash game through the “Metalverse”, some of them were visibly pissed off when they found out that there were significant portions of the game that were RTS elements… a genre that has yet to penetrate the console market successfully.  I can understand why Brutal Legend was marketed in the way it was marketed.  The reaction to a RTS console game is rarely well received.  From that angle, the marketing failed.  They pushed a product that didn’t give the consumer enough information to fulfill their expectations.

This looks a bit too well lit to be an Aliens vs. Predator game... but damn it's cool

In this case, the marketing of Aliens vs. Predator gives a tight group of the gaming demographic EXACTLY what they expect and what they desire.  This new trailer is probably one of the better trailers I’ve seen for a video game of that sort.  It communicates clearly, mixing what appears to be ingame scenes, pre-rendered scenes and actual gameplay footage into a bloody montage.

In fact, one of the quick scenes that’s stuck in my head is the part where you have the “mouth view” of the alien as it rushes in to separate a marine’s face from the rest of his head.

Yet is this a cheap attempt to gain media attention, to excite gamers by giving them what could be the bloodiest moments in the game?  Probably, but for the right audience, this is exactly right.  This is exactly what they want.  Fans of the Aliens and Predator stories (like me) have come to expect this over the top brutality in our comics, games and movies about this particular universe.

I’ve watched it dozens of times… and I don’t think I could get enough of this game.

However, Sega needs to watch it… if this game sucks, then this same trailer which is damn good video game marketing could become a touchpoint of fan anger if the actual game doesn’t live up to the standard that it’s presenting.  So even good pre-launch marketing could immediately turn into bad marketing if the product doesn’t live up to the hype.

There was a time when many of our treasured classics and not so classic games had developed wild rumors and myths about them the perpetuated to the point where people actually believed  them to be true.  Some were true but not entirely and others, well not so much. You know know how it starts, it’s like a bad game of password or telephone and  by the time the dust settles the rumor or urban legend left standing becomes codified into gaming history .

So this edition of Flashback pays tribute to some of great gaming myths of yesteryear.

Nude  Raider

In your dreams boys

Every teen boy’s dream would be to see this anatomically endowed action girl, Lara Croft, in the buff  since her premiere more than 10 years ago there’s. So yes, there’s never been a cheat of any kind to unlock Ms. Croft in her birthday suit in all the versions of  Tomb Raider, but there was a PC patch a while back called Nude Raider that would allow you to see her pixelated boobs. Ah the days before DSL and cable modems. You had to be patient for your videogame porn.

The Mario Flagpole Trick

Jump around, jump up and jump over, jump, jump!

Super Mario Brothers had this iconic bit at the end of each level like the one pictured above and well somehow a rumor got started that you could actually … jump over the flagpole. Sure this crazy plumber dude who’s main ability is jumping could certainly jump over that pole right? Turns out you could. The act of jumping the flagpole wasn’t really the myth. It was the fact that everyone thought it granted you some magical level or an amazing score or something. Nope, no such luck. Not only was this a challenging task but the myth of untold greatness after you did it, well that was fantastically wrong.

Buried Piles Of the E.T Game

On this one Kruschev was right

While this sounds like a total fabrication it is in fact true and a sad commentary on what happens when someone doesn’t think beyond the dollar bills they envision they’ll make. Yes E.T. the movie was a huge hit but the game is still considered one of if not the worst game in history. That being said when it was released Atari thought, “We should make a ton of these because they’ll sell like hotcakes.” And when they didn’t — what do you do thousands of unsold cartridges? Bury them in a New Mexico desert. The bigger surprise to this rumor wasn’t that this actually happened, but that it happened more than once.

Home Repair Then and Now– Blowing On Stuff And Using Towels

Blow on this -- it doesn't work

only works if you bathe it in pointless hope

Back in the SNES days the alleged trick/myth was to blow on the cartridge (yes they used cartridges)  if it wasn’t working. That one was a total myth. Common sense tells you that blowing on a device with internal parts in the opening that led to said internal parts would … screw up the parts. But this is one of those old adages like blowing on the needle of the turntable (a what?) and hitting the side of the TV for better reception.

Fast forward to the modern consoles and we get — the towel trick. Back when Microsoft was awash with RROD consoles during the 360’s first couple of years, people wrote in detail and also made videos of this trick with a towel where you overheated the 360 on by wrapping it up in a towel and leaving it on with the purpose to get it to “reset” itself and fix the red ring of death. Does it work? Not exactly. It works  in the sense that you’ll feel like you’ve actually succeeded in stopping  your RROD … for about 20 minutes.  Alas the red lights would return and you would be stuck with a non-working machine you would have to send back. It is fun to see all the versions of the towel trick though.

The Sheng Long Hoax

I fooled you all! I'm not even Sheng Long!

Talk about a joke that turned in a long lasting  legend take a minute to ingest this one –  If played through Street Fighter II as Ryu and somehow  didn’t take on any damage then fought the end of the game boss M. Bison and neither of you took damage and outlasted the fight clock, this badass Sheng Long would show up, get rid of Bison, freeze time and then fight you to the death. Yes take a minute. Does this even make sense? Well back in 1992 it seemed logical especially since it was printed in the EGM ( the gaming magazine of the time) in a editorial. The whole thing — was an April Fool’s joke. Some other mags took it as real and reprinted it as a real game tip and thus the legend began.  From joke to legend in one page flat.

And the greatest myth of all — POLYBIUS!

Be carfeul -- you might get hooked

POLY what? No not the Greek historian

This urban legend is almost worthy of a flashback of its own but here’s the basic gist. In 1981 there apparently was this game that was released to the innocent masses sin the suburbs of Portland, OR area. The game was successfully to the point of addiction (lines around the corner, thousand mile stares, hysteria). As the legend continues this addiction led to the dudes in black suits and glasses coming around and collecting data about these psychoactive machines that were allegedly causing  amnesia, insomnia, nightmares, night terrors, and even suicide.

What’s that you say — a government conspired videogame weapon? Here’s the best part — no one could ever really confirm any of this from the Men in Black taking names of the high scores to the subliminal messages in the then revolutionary vector graphics.