Chatroulette Speed Painting #1

South Korea Cracks Down on Gaming Addiction

courtesy of Time

Ever since Yoon Hyuk-joo, a 16-year-old in Seoul, started playing the popular computer game StarCraft eight years ago, studying has taken the backseat. For six hours every day in dim, smoky Internet cafés known in the South Korean capital as "PC Bangs," Yoon leads a squad of soldiers in Battlefield Online and then maims the undead in Counter-Strike: Zombies. His idols aren't your usual baseball players or pop-music stars: the high school student looks to inspiration from Lim Yo-hwan, known in South Korea as "the Emperor." Lim is one of the most successful professional StarCraft players of all time, whose celebrity has spurred fans to label him and his actress girlfriend as the South Korean equivalent of Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore.

But in a country where video-game champions live like rock stars, Yoon concedes that too many teenagers are getting hooked on the hobby. He was pleased last week when the government ordered what it calls a "nighttime shutdown" for gamers: the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism directed the operators of the three most popular games to block people under age 18 from playing games between midnight and 8 a.m. starting in September. Another rule will significantly slow down the Internet connections of young players if they engage for too many hours into the night, rendering the more graphics-intensive games unplayable, and several other bills are pending in the National Assembly that could restrict kids' gaming habits even further. "It's a great idea," says Yoon. "Video-game addiction is having bad effects on our generation. The kids have to study and grow up eventually."

(See pictures of South Korean video gamers.)

South Korea is one of the most wired countries in the world, but that connectivity comes with a price. Since the early 2000s, occasional reports of compulsive gamers dying or murdering loved ones to satisfy their addiction have raised hackles at the industry, a domestic market valued at about $2.4 billion in which 30 million people are thought to play regularly. The government introduced the recent nighttime shutdown one month after police discovered a 3-month-old baby who starved to death while her parents were busy nurturing their virtual baby on a game at an Internet café.

The curfew also comes one month after the Korean e-Sports Players Association, a governing body of professional computer-game sports, reportedly filed charges against a group of retired StarCraft players and officials for allegedly manipulating the betting system — a testament to how seriously some Koreans have come to take the game. In February, a 22-year-old Korean man was charged with murdering his mother after she pestered him to stop playing. And in 2005, in one of the most famous cases, a 28-year-old man went into cardiac arrest and died after playing StarCraft for 50 hours straight, with only a few bathroom breaks. That was a particularly bad year for the country, when 10 people died from related causes to video-game addiction.

Psychologists estimate that 10% of South Korean schoolchildren have shown signs of video-game addiction, thought by some psychiatrists to be one of the highest rates in the world, along with that of China. Video-game addiction — though not officially recognized in the U.S. by the American Psychological Association — typically includes symptoms like becoming withdrawn or angry when not allowed to play. Severe cases can result in addicts' simply not eating or sleeping until they're back on their binge. For years, South Korea has been at the forefront of treating the disorder. In 2002, before the issue had risen to global prominence, the government opened one of the region's first Internet-addiction treatment centers, perched away in the countryside. Since then, hundreds of private hospitals and clinics in the country have opened specialized units to treat the disorder, and the government even opened a hotline for gaming addicts in 2006. At the treatment centers, patients typically spend two weeks or more detoxing from video games by partaking in outdoor activities and arts and crafts. They also discuss with counselors the problems that video games have created for their health and social lives, supposedly releasing their anxiety.

Refined, polished, punishing: Ars plays Halo: Reach multi

courtesy of arstechnica

After finding myself on the receiving end of so many flames after failing to name Halo: Reach as one of our most-anticipated games of 2010, I promised myself I'd deliver some good coverage of the game for our readers. Bungie did one better, and let us simply play the game for an afternoon. As is our policy, Ars Technica paid for 100 percent of our travel and hotel expenses.

The best preview events, the ones where you know the game is going to be good, are the ones where the people behind the game know enough to get out of the way and let you play the game. Last week I flew into Seattle at the invitation of Bungie to sample the multiplayer of Halo: Reach, and the crew gave the assembled press a short presentation of each of the maps and game modes we would be playing. Then they simply stood back and allowed us to play against each other.

The mood was serious at first, as everyone spent time taking notes and murmuring to themselves about this detail or that reveal, but soon the room devolved into a group of hooting, cursing fans playing the game. "This is the first time anyone outside of Bungie has played this," we were told, but the developers were more than happy to allow us to enjoy the game.

"Do you guys want to play a round of Juggernaut?" we were asked. Of course we did. There was some question of how much to reveal to us in our time with the game, and this seemed to create a short internal struggle. "It's in there," one of the developers said, shrugging as he motioned to our builds of the game. Soon he was setting the game type up on one of our stations, and we were playing. In another round of Headhunter, things were extremely tense as a three-way tie finally ended with a victor. After the cheers, those of us in the room took a moment to sink back into our seats and take a breath.



"That was one of the closest rounds of Headhunter I've seen," we were told by the onlookers. I nodded. The game clicked for everyone in the room, and we were lost in the struggle of collecting the flaming skulls and trying to up our own score. It was a delicious assignment: hang out with a dozen or so members of the gaming press and just take the new multiplayer modes of Halo: Reach out for a test drive. Kick the tires a few times. We weren't shown everything, but we were given the run of the content that will be available in the beta when it goes live, with promises that there was a lot from the full game that we wouldn't be seeing.

There is a reason this series is so respected

There is a fair amount of hate for the Halo series, in the way that anything with this level of popularity brings out the haters. What the nay-sayers don't understand is that nothing else in gaming feels like Halo. If you don't enjoy the series, more power to you; taste in games is personal and you should always play what you like. For those who love Halo though, they understand that it's a slower paced, deliberate, slightly insane multiplayer experience.

The fact that you're stuck with only two guns at a time, the reliance on grenades to flush out enemies, the floaty jumps and the love of melee attacks—it doesn't look or play like anything else on the market. Every time Bungie releases a Halo game, the multiplayer is tweaked and refined and improved, but the formula remains consistent. Halo is a game that simply works, and its fans expect a high level of polish when they play.

Matchmaking is set to get a boost in this version of Halo, with a smoother experience that works well even with more players. The new system also allows for impressive granularity: you can make the game prioritize connection speed, skill level, or games in your native language when trying to find a game. You also have social settings to choose from, to make sure you play with people who match your style. Do you talk? Are you quiet? Do you play competitively, or simply to enjoy yourself? Do you go Rambo, or enjoy teamwork? Do you like a polite game, or are you a trash talker? By adjusting all these options you'll be able to filter out people whose play styles may be distasteful, allowing you a better play experience.

There is also a credit system, where you gain virtual currency by playing the game. You use these credits to buy different options for your armor, and your aesthetic choices will be shown in both the single and multiplayer modes. You gain credits by playing the game, and by clearing challenges that will be constantly added to the game. Daily challenges may be easy to accomplish, but the weekly challenges will require a heavier time commitment. Commendations will also be awarded based on your behavior, with seven different Commendations included in the beta. All these things simply serve as your way to gain credits, and the credits are only spent on prestige items to change how you look to other players.

Derek Carroll is the Multiplayer Designer on Halo: Reach, and I asked him if there was ever a temptation to allow players to purchase better weapons or powers with credits."Not for us," he said. He understands that some games have you begin with an underpowered character and make you earn a "good character," but that simply doesn't fit into what they want for their own games. "Halo has always been about everyone having the same bag of tools... when you first start playing it you'll learn and grow, the RPG happens on the inside." You get better with practice, not by earning better weapons and abilities. "It has come up, but internally there has not been the temptation to do that."


The multiplayer isn't class-based, but you'll be making choices

Certain game modes will ask you to choose from a selection of armor powers, which come with a set loadout when you spawn. You'll still be able to pick up any weapon in the battlefield, but these powers will affect your strategy and give you some advantages in certain situations.

The jetpack was the most remarked upon addition to multiplayer, and it adds a very welcome sense of the vertical to the game. It's also wonderful to simply fly over the head of an opponent stalking you with the energy sword. You have a limited amount of thrust, and you can take falling damage if you fly too high and don't have the energy left to break your fall. Spartans can also take the Sprint ability, which is simply a flat run to increase your speed, while taking away your ability to shoot. The Elites can take the Evade power, which allows them to dodge and roll away from attacks, just like they do in the single-player game. Throwing a well-aimed grenade, only to have your prey tuck and roll to the side and continue to come after you is unsettling, to say the least.

Active Camo is now an Armor Ability as well, giving the player a limited time to be less visible. Standing completely still makes you completely invisible, while walking, running, and shooting makes you easier to pick out. Armor Lock is an interesting ability: when activated the Spartan crouches and becomes completely invincible, but cannot shoot or move. It's an easy way to soak even the most powerful weapon shots, and if you stay down for long enough, you throw off an EMP charge when you get up, killing the shields of nearby enemies and allowing you to quickly turn the tables. It's a risk/reward move, but when used well it's a very effective tactic.

You choose your Armor Power when you spawn, and can change from one to the other as many times as you'd like in a single round. Don't worry: there are still plenty of game modes that don't allow these powers if you like a more classical experience. Each game mode offers different loadouts, with a combination of weapons and Armor Abilities to choose from, and those will be specific to different game modes and maps. In the final version you may also be able to customize these yourself.


Invasion ups the scale of Halo multiplayer

The largest change in the multiplayer of Halo: Reach is the Invasion game mode. Maps with multiple objectives, played with Spartans against the Elites, will make this mode a hit among fans of a more tactical and team-based experience. The map we played was Boneyard, a large graveyard for decommissioned ships. The Elites have to climb onto a vessel being held by the Spartans, and stand inside set areas for twenty seconds to unlock the next area. The second area features vehicles, upping the scale of the battle, and each progressive step allows both sides to choose from more powerful loadouts and Armor Abilities.

After opening the second set of doors, the Elites have to steal a power core and walk it to an extraction point to win. At this point in the round there will be Scorpions and Scarab tanks fighting; there is a Warthog available, as well as Wraiths, and all the loadouts are available. The last push, with the Elite running the power core to safety, can be incredibly chaotic, and team play is essential to win. The round ends either when time runs out or the Elites steal the power core, and then roles are reversed.

We played this mode for a few hours, and quite simply, it's brilliant. There are many ways to win the objectives, and it was amusing to see an Elite turn on his active camo and stand stock still inside one of the objectives while the defending Spartans seemed confused by the alarms telling them an enemy was attacking the objective. Once jetpacks are unlocked, both sides begin to swarm the skies. It's quite the sight.

Generator Defense

Generator Defense also pits the Elites against the Spartans, with the Spartans defending a series of generators from the invading aliens. Played on the scenic Overlook map, the Spartans have the ability to "lock down" the generators and make them invulnerable for short amounts of time. Grenades take down the power of the generators very quickly, as do melee attacks. The problem with melee attacks? When the generators are destroyed, they erupt, as I found out painfully the first time I played and my body was blasted across the level.

You'll see the power level for each generator, and alarms tell the defenders when one is under attack. It's a difficult game of locking down the generators and trying to be at all places at once while the attacking forces harass the Spartans and take pot shots at the generators. Again, team play is essential to success in this game mode, so be sure you have voice chat on (as scary as that can be in public games of Halo).

Other new game modes

In Headhunter, fallen players drop a flaming skull, which can be picked up and deposited in set scoring areas for points. You can carry up to ten skulls at once, although when you die you drop all your skulls, while adding your own. If someone is able to deposit ten skulls at once, it's an automatic win. The number of skulls you're carrying is shown above your character, so the more you carry, the more of a target you'll become.

In Stockpile, a set number of neutral flags are scattered around the level, and those can be picked up and placed in your team's scoring area. Here's the catch: the point only counts when the timer counts down to zero, so before that time enemies can raid your scoring area to steal your flags, or simply remove them so you don't score.

As we stated above, we were also able to play Juggernaut, with a few changes. Now, when the Juggernaut changes between players there will be a small interval when the Juggernaut is invulnerable, causing the players fighting the last Juggernaut to scatter as the invincible player slams everyone he sees with the hammer. The stat for becoming the Juggernaut was listed in our builds as "Jugg time," which we were assured was simply placeholder. It's a shame, that. Who doesn't love Jugg time?

New Weapons

The weapons will be familiar to fans of the series, with a few nice additions. The Plasma Repeater is the Covenant version of the assault rifle, but instead of reloading you'll vent the gun to cool it down. When you pull the trigger the rate of fire is impressive, but it drops as the gun collects heat. Vent often.

The Grenade Launcher sends out a bouncing, hard-to-aim grenade. By holding the trigger button you can control when the grenade detonates, allowing you to set traps for your prey. The Plasma Launcher is my personal favorite: a Covenant weapon that can fire up to four plasma grenades that stick to your opponents. The grenades even track your opponents to a limited degree, making this a wonderful weapon to use against vehicles.

The Focus Rifle is the update to the Covenant Sniper Rifle, but it now fires a continuous beam. The DMR is the updated Battle Rifle, good for headshots and medium- to long-range fighting. The Needle Rifle is a longer-range Needler.

These weapons are welcome additions, but there isn't anything here that will come as a shock. Learning how and when to use each may take a little bit of time, but the new weapons seem to be mostly evolutions of what we were already used to.


Derek Carroll

I had a chance to sit down with Derek Carroll, who is the Multiplayer Designer for Halo: Reach. The first thing I asked was, "How do you make sure something that's as much of a game-changer as a jet pack doesn't change the game for the worse."

"We playtest every single day," he told Ars. They add something new, playtest it over and over, let their team find exploits, sand down the exploits, and finally arrive at something that works.


An example of that level of polish: during a game of Headhunter, someone noticed that skulls dropped inside the scoring area simply disappeared. That was a conscious decision, as it became a popular strategy to simply wait in the box and kill those trying to score. As we played, we were talked through many of these tiny tweaks that made the gameplay smoother, and kept the competition heavy but fair. These things may seem idiosyncratic at first, but it became clear that every decision was made to keep the game as balanced as possible. It's an impressive amount of care.

So what's something that didn't work? Carroll talks about one dropped feature. "Invasion at one time had an economy where you got money and spent it on weapons and vehicles. That level of complexity, where you add another layer to the basic Halo gameplay—it was interesting, but you spend so much time worrying about money and these other things that you don't have enough time to worry about tactics and keeping the team completing your objective," he explained. "Everyone worrying about making money for themselves took away from the point of just capturing [the objective]. So we had that for a while, tried it out, and that additional complexity... it's not better."

Being in a beta, back in the proverbial day, meant dealing with an unfinished game, writing out bug reports, and working for the right to play the game early. Has the role of the beta changed? "Absolutely. The thing with betas is, everyone wants to get into the beta. If it's a game you're excited about, of course you want it sooner. Do you want to be part of the process? Yeah."

While Carroll is open about the publicity factor inherent in offering a beta for a game of this popularity, he stresses that they'll still be learning. "This is a working beta for us, we're going to get some good data out of it. We wouldn't do it just for fun, or just for marketing. But recognizing that there is a marketing upside, people are excited and want to see it and play it, it's a way to give them a slice and get a lot of information for ourselves. It's great."

Everyone is looking at something different once the beta goes live: Are there exploits? How does the game feel? Is the back-end working? Where are the player populations gathering? Everyone at Bungie has something they're going to learn from. At one point Carroll called the beta a "demo" before correcting himself.

Carroll doesn't worry about any ideas being completely rejected, however. "Because we internally playtest so much, because we're own biggest critics—maybe not according to the forums (laughs)—I'd be very surprised if the entire universe said, 'This is stupid' by the time we show it to them. Reach Multiplayer is so big I really think there is something for everybody, there are so many kinds of game in the game."

The most important question: how was it?

We played the game for about six hours, with a break for lunch and for interviews. The new multiplayer modes are already tuned very tightly, and the maps are filled with surprises and tactical opportunity. Learning how to use the Armor Abilities and to remember to look above you for jetpack attacks took time, but it also opened the game up wonderfully.

The game won't convince you to play if you don't care for the Halo style of play, but for fans of console-style multiplayer, this is one of the best experiences you'll find. The different game modes offer something for team players, for lone wolves, and the ability to tweak the game settings and set up your own games means that you can stick to the modes and style you like the best.




This is a significant improvement in both scope and execution from Halo 3, with plenty of new things to see and do. You'll be able to play for yourself when the beta goes live on May 3, and I think you'll be just as excited as we were last week. Halo is one of the most popular franchises in gaming, and that didn't happen by luck: even while playing unfinished code the content felt polished, tweaked, and well designed.

Invasion is going to be fun to play online, and Headhunter is a riot if you don't mind a little bit of anarchy. Swordbase is a wonder with the jetpacks—it feels like Boarding Action, but now you have even more power to move vertically. The options here are impressive, and so many play styles and options are presented that it can be slightly overwhelming. Even just looking at the content included in the beta, this is an impressive suite of multiplayer offerings, and the office was filled with the groans, cheers, and good-natured curses as the gaming press learned the game modes and tried out the new weapons. No razzle-dazzle from Bungie—we just sat down and played.

See you online very soon.

Halo Reach Beta Previews Storm the Net: Summary and Round-Up

courtesy of vgchartz

The Halo Reach event in London, among other places, kicks off the onslaught of Beta previews for Bungie's finale to the epic Halo series, and plenty of gaming journalists from across the wide world of the internet were there to begin gleaning details from this epic project.

But why so epic, you may ask? Well, Bungie's Brian Jarrard estimates "conservatively" that the beta will host 3 million players, though there is no actual cap to how many players can join in. This is even more impressive given that in order to get access to the beta on May 3rd, gamers have to pick up or already own a copy of Halo 3: ODST. This is unlike traditional betas, most of which are available for free download or by free invitation, and some of the most impressive of these just barely reach the 3 million mark.




Ok, so we know it's a big deal, what else? A number of the previews out now are making free associations between this beta and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, saying Bungie has taken obvious upgrading elements from Infinity Ward (as if it belongs to them), but turned it on it's unique, Halo-head in order to create what feels like a rewarding, unique experience.

How? First, Halo Reach features changeable loadouts, a first for the franchise. However, these loadouts are not entirely customizable, as they are tied to the level being played. This gives the multiplayer that "choose your own path" kind of feel, allowing players to focus more on battle than picking up the right weapon, while retaining the traditional Halo style "use what you got" mentality.

Also, Characters can upgrade armor at the beginning of battles to feature "Sprint" (Spartans only), "Active Camo", "Evade" (Elites only), "Jet-Pack", and "Armor Lock" (temporary invulnerability). One of the major concerns with these new add-ons has been the way that the jet-pack might dilute gameplay into some quasi Dark Void fly-swatting escapade. However, if the majority of the previews are to be believed, it sounds like the jet-pack provides anything but, some calling it "our favourite by far". Of course all of these elements will take some getting used to, but apparently the feel is similar enough to previous Halo games to be easily picked up on.




What seems to be the biggest new change is the addition of differentiation between Spartans and Elites. Not only do they have access to different abilities, but the Elites are a little slower and more powerful, while the Spartans are quicker and fare better in team attack situations. Probably the most startling difference, though, is that the Elites regenerate their health over time, while Spartans have to pick up med packs scattered throughout the levels. Again, according to the previews, the strategic placement of some of these med packs has actually made for a well-balanced health system, despite the parity between them.

And of course there's the new game types: Generator Defense, Stockpile, Headhunter, and Invasion. Generator Defense pits Spartan vs. Elite in a battle for the human faction to defend three generators from the alien. Stockpile is kind of like a capture the flag game, but with collection intervals. Headhunter gives players the Sonic-esque ability to collect tokens (heads) from the players they kill in an attempt to return as many to their base. Invasion has a Battlefield feel to it, once again pitting Spartans vs. Elites in an ever evolving, moving stage, multi-objective game. For example, as one base is destroyed by the Elites, the Spartans must fall back and defend the next flag, or take out the Elite attack force for good.




There's so much more information out there, so this summary only scratches the surface. Feel free to check out the previews referenced in the links below for more, and if you don't already have it, go get that used copy of Halo 3: ODST before May 3rd.

Thanks...

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Canceled Halo MMORPG?!?

courtesy of incgamers.com

Monk revealed to IncGamers that, from 2004 to 2007, he spent all of his time working on a project codenamed Titan, which you might know better as the cancelled MMO set in the Halo universe.

"It was going to be the Halo MMO, and it was absolutely going to compete against WoW," reminisced Monk.

"You have to remember that Ensemble came from a standpoint of being really good at competing against Blizzard Entertainment," he noted, drawing comparisons between the success of the Warcraft series and the success of the Age of Empires series. "We had a pretty good history of knowing the types of stuff that Blizzard put into their games to make them really successful, and the kinds of things we'd need to put into an MMO to compete against Blizzard."

"Just to give you a couple of examples," Monk elaborated, "we were using a heroic stylised artform. This heroic stylised artform is exactly the artform that you see being used in Star Wars: The Old Republic right now. It's timeless. It doesn't age itself like a game that's built with a strictly realistic artform does."

"We were developing a cover system. This cover system is in Star Wars: The Old Republic. We had the idea of quests - and like I said, this was between 2004 and 2007, before Warhamer Online had been released - but we had this idea of quests where you could participate and pull them together without having to be on the same team. This would be a public quest that everyone in a particular area could work on. That idea went into Warhammer Online."

Monk also notes that, since Ensemble's closure, a number of Ensemble staffers have since moved to Blizzard - not least of all Greg Street, known to World of Warcraft fans as Ghostcrawler.

"We had all this incredible talent, we had the right people, the right passion, we had a phenomenally successful IP - the Halo IP. We were going back in time for the Halo franchise to broaden the story a little bit, in the exact same way that Star Wars has gone back in time so they can tell a more broad story, and we had a company that had our back when we started and the funding to put together that type of project."

So what happened to the Halo MMO? "There was a bit of a changing of the guard at Microsoft at this time," explains Monk. "Microsoft, from its gaming division, was really changing directions. They were looking really hard at the Nintendo Wii and they were really excited by the numbers that the Wii was turning. This was about the time that Microsoft decided that its Xbox platform and XBLA really needed to go more in the direction of appealing to a more casual, broader audience."

"So part of this changing of the guard at Microsoft came along with the changing of the attitude to this very expensive, very long and very protacted $90 million USD project we were working on, which was Titan. To cut a long story short, Titan was closed down."

Today, though, Monk is still optimistic about the chances the MMO would've had.

"Even though a lot of people talk about how you just can't build a WoW killer, I absolutely believe that we could have built an MMO, if Microsoft had maintained their commitment, that if it hadn't been a WoW killer it certainly would've competed."

Stay tuned for our full interview with Dusty Monk later this week, with plenty of discussion about gaming, MMOs, Ensemble, and - of course - Monk's own Windstorm Studios.

Red Dead Redemption Video Game Trailers

Introduction to Gameplay

Video Games | Red Dead Redemption | Gameplay Series: Introduction

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Weapons & Death

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'Breach' Coming Exclusively to Xbox Live Marketplace

'Breach' is a FPS that will be a download only title exclusive for Xbox Live coming out this summer. Not sure how much it's going to cost but it looks a whole lot like Battlefield 1943.

Game Reviews - E3 2010

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Missing Link between Man and Apes Found

courtesy of Telegraph.co.uk

The new species of hominid, the evolutionary branch of primates that includes humans, is to be revealed when the two-million-year-old skeleton of a child is unveiled this week.

Scientists believe the almost-complete fossilised skeleton belonged to a previously-unknown type of early human ancestor that may have been a intermediate stage as ape-men evolved into the first species of advanced humans, Homo habilis.



Experts who have seen the skeleton say it shares characteristics with Homo habilis, whose emergence 2.5 million years ago is seen as a key stage in the evolution of our species.

The new discovery could help to rewrite the history of human evolution by filling in crucial gaps in the scientific knowledge.

Most fossilised hominid remains are little more than scattered fragments of bone, so the discovery of an almost-complete skeleton will allow scientists to answer key questions about what our early ancestors looked like and when they began walking upright on two legs.

Palaeontologists and human evolutionary experts behind the discovery have remained silent about the exact details of what they have uncovered, but the scientific community is already abuzz with anticipation of the announcement of the find when it is made on Thursday.

The skeleton was found by Professor Lee Berger, from the University of the Witwatersrand, while exploring cave systems in the Sterkfontein region of South Africa, near Johannesburg, an area known as "the Cradle of Humanity".

The find is deemed to be so significant that Jacob Zuma, the South African president, has visited the university to view the fossils and a major media campaign with television documentaries is planned.

Professor Phillip Tobias, an eminent human anatomist and anthropologist at the university who was one of three experts to first identify Homo habilis as a new species of human in 1964, described the latest discovery as "wonderful" and "exciting".

Although not directly involved in the excavation and subsequent research on the fossils, he is one of the select few scientists outside the research group who have been able to see the skeletons.

He said: "To find a skeleton as opposed to a couple of teeth or an arm bone is a rarity.

"It is one thing to find a lower jaw with a couple of teeth, but it is another thing to find the jaw joined onto the skull, and those in turn uniting further down with the spinal column, pelvis and the limb bones.

"It is not a single find, but several specimens representing several individuals. The remains now being brought to light by Dr Berger and his team are wonderful."

The new fossil skeleton was found along with a number of other partially-complete fossils, encased within breccia sedimentary rock inside a limestone cave known as Malapa cave.

The protection from the elements provided by the cave is thought to have played a large part in keeping the fossils so well preserved.

The fossil record of early humans is notoriously patchy and scientists now hope that the that the new remains will provide fresh clues about how our species evolved.

Scientists believe that a group of apelike hominids known as Australopithicus, which first emerged in Africa around 3.9 million years ago, gradually evolved into the first Homo species.

Over time the Australopithicus species lost their more apelike features as they started to stand upright and their brain capacity increased.

Around 2.5 million years ago Homo habilis, the first species to be described as distinctly human, began to appear, although only a handful of specimens have ever been found.

It is thought that the new fossil to be unveiled this week will be identified as a new species that fits somewhere between Australopithicus and Homo habilis.

If it is confirmed as a missing link between the two groups, it would be of immense scientific importance, helping to fill in a gap in the evolutionary history of modern man.

Dr Simon Underdown, an expert on human evolution at Oxford Brookes University, said the new find could help scientists gain a better understanding of our evolutionary tree.

He said: "A find like this could really increase our understanding of our early ancestors at a time when they first started to become recognisable as human."

The discovery is the most important find from Sterkfontein since an almost-complete fossil of a 3.3 million year old Australopithecus, nicknamed Little Foot, was found in 1994.

Another major discovery was the well-preserved skull of a 2.15 million year old Australopithecus africanus, nicknamed Mrs Ples, in 1947.

Finding almost complete fossilised skeletons of human ancestors is particularly prized by the scientific community.

The presence of a pelvis and complete limb bones would allow scientists to unravel the posture and method of walking used by the extinct species.

If the specimen also contains hand bones, it could provide clues about the species' dexterity and such evidence will prove crucial in determining when the ability of modern humans to handle stone tools first emerged.

Dr Kevin Kuykendall, a palaeoanthropologist at Sheffield University, said such finds were essential in helping to fill in the gaps in our knowledge about human ancestors.

He said: "The information we have right now is probably only based on a few hundred individuals through out the whole world, but some of these are single isolated teeth.

"If this new specimen is more complete and provides better information, all those models about locomotive behaviour will have a chance to really go under scrutiny and refined."

Will the PlayStation 4 be the Best Video Game System Ever!

Playing 'Pong' with the Blink of an Eye

If this was real it would be funny

1

An Interesting Look at Nintendo

Via: Online MBA

Star Wars: The Old Republic Xbox 360-bound?

courtesy of GameSpot.com

Source: British news site VG247.

Microsoft has sent mixed messages about bringing massively multiplayer online role-playing games to the Xbox 360. The announcement that Final Fantasy XI was coming to the console was the centerpiece of its 2005 Electronic Entertainment Expo press conference. (The Xbox 360 had been revealed the week before). However, the company quietly killed off its Marvel superhero MMORPG for the console, which developer Cryptic then turned into Champions Online for the PC.

With the console version of Champions Online now canceled, Xbox 360 owners are wondering what the next big MMORPG for the system might be. VG247 appeared to answer that question when it posted what it claimed was European retailer GAME's internal long-term schedule of Xbox 360 releases. Toward the end, the schedule clearly lists Star Wars: The Old Republic as coming to the console sometime in 2011.EA recently pushed back the PC version of the game to a "spring 2011" launch window.

The official story: The listing appeared to back up speculation sparked by comments made by Electronic Arts president Frank Gibeau in 2008. Then, he told Eurogamer that his company was "definitely looking at the opportunity to bring the MMO experience to console, without question."

However, EA subsidiary BioWare, which is developing the game at its Austin studio, quickly shot down the rumor in a post on the official Old Republic forums. "As to why The Old Republic is on that list, we have no idea but to allay any confusion, we should not be on there," said BioWare community manager Sean Dahlberg.

Dahlberg also re-posted his company's official boilerplate regarding the sci-fi MMORPG: "Star Wars: The Old Republic is currently being developed for the personal computer (PC) using the Microsoft Windows operating system. While we recognize that there are other operating systems and platforms available for games today, our development is specific to the personal computer using the Windows operating system at this time."

Bogus or not bogus?: Bogus…for now, anyway.

Xbox 360-branded USB drives start at $40 - Retail Radar

courtesy of GameSpot.com

Last week, Microsoft confirmed rumors that the Xbox 360 would start supporting USB flash drives starting April 6. The move came after nearly four and a half years of Microsoft only offering first-party proprietary memory units and hard drives, which were widely criticized for being overpriced. It also came just over four months after Microsoft locked out high-capacity third-party memory units with a fall firmware update.

As part of the USB-support announcement, Microsoft said that it was partnering with SanDisk to release Xbox 360-branded USB flash drives. Now, GameStop is listing the official USB drives, which bear a higher price than un-branded third-party devices, for preorder. The 8GB drive retails for $39.99, while the 16GB model sells for $69.90. By comparison, an unbranded SanDisk 16GB thumb drive is on sale on Amazon for $28.50, or 59 percent cheaper.

According to the GameStop description, the main selling point of the Xbox 360-branded USB flash drives is that they are "preconfigured" for a "seamless experience" and come with a one-month Xbox Live Gold membership, which has a full retail value of $8 but can be acquired for as much as $2.50. However, formatting an unbranded third-party drive is as easy as plugging it into the Xbox 360, going to the system settings area, selecting the USB device, and selecting "configure now."