Electronic Entertainment Expo is the big video game conference. Who is covering it?

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Young gamers today aren't training to be gun-toting carjackers. They're learning how to learn. In Pikmin, children manage an army of plantlike aliens and strategize to solve problems. In Metal Gear Solid 2, players move stealthily through virtual environments and carry out intricate missions. Even in the notorious Vice City, players craft a persona, build a history, and shape a virtual world. In strategy games like WarCraft III and Age of Mythology, they learn to micromanage an array of elements while simultaneously balancing short- and long-term goals. That sounds like something for their résumés.

The secret of a videogame as a teaching machine isn't its immersive 3-D graphics, but its underlying architecture. Each level dances around the outer limits of the player's abilities, seeking at every point to be hard enough to be just doable. In cognitive science, this is referred to as the regime of competence principle, which results in a feeling of simultaneous pleasure and frustration - a sensation as familiar to gamers as sore thumbs.

"Ender's Game has had a lot of influence on our thinking," said Michael Macedonia, director of the Army's simulation technology center in Orlando, Fla., which plans to build a virtual Afghanistan that could host hundreds of thousands of networked computers. "The intent is to build a simulation that allows people to play in that world for months or years, participate in different types of roles and see consequences of their decisions."

originally posted by xowie

‘The enemy we’re fighting is a bit different than the one we war-gamed against.’

Van Riper had at his disposal a computer-generated flotilla of small boats and planes, many of them civilian, which he kept buzzing around the virtual Persian Gulf in circles as the game was about to get under way. As the US fleet entered the Gulf, Van Riper gave a signal - not in a radio transmission that might have been intercepted, but in a coded message broadcast from the minarets of mosques at the call to prayer. The seemingly harmless pleasure craft and propeller planes suddenly turned deadly, ramming into Blue boats and airfields along the Gulf in scores of al-Qaida-style suicide attacks... "A phrase I heard over and over was: 'That would never have happened,'" Van Riper recalls. "And I said: nobody would have thought that anyone would fly an airliner into the World Trade Centre... but nobody seemed interested."

originally posted by daiichi

So I’ve been reading the excellent Word Freak by Stefan Fatsis, and studying two-letter word lists, but still can’t beat Janie at Literati. Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, a basketball coach is losing his job, maybe, under the watchful eye of the Coach Wooden Pyramid of Success, which does not seem to apply to Scrabble, by the way. Also, what the heck, here’s an entertaining metafilter thread that might come in handy for some trivia contest yet to come.

originally posted by xowie

Stephen Johnson on game demos

“Nintendo of America recently hosted an interview with two of the masterminds behind The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. Producer Shigeru Miyamoto (who directed the original Zelda titles, including Ocarina of Time) and Director Eiji Aonuma spoke with members of the gaming media via video teleconferencing from Japan.”

Actually order and consume virtual McD's food, then use The Sims Online's "expressive gestures" in creative ways. Lie down and play dead. Emote the vomiting, sickness, or fatigue that might overcome you after eating a real life McNugget.

originally posted by daiichi

People who play Scrabble around the kitchen table usually score in the 200s. Good Scrabble players hit scores of 450 or more, said Wapnick, whose top score is 662.

originally posted by daiichi

And there it sat for over a decade ...

Until I received several pieces of email recently, the combined gist of which is that there are rumors abounding on the Net and the Web about a last episode of the show, either scripted and never produced, or produced and never aired, in which we learn that the kids actually died on the rollercoaster that supposedly took them into the Realm, and that they are, in fact, imprisoned in Hell and being tormented with a complex fantasy (as if just being in Hell wouldn't be torment enough) by the Devil masquerading as Dungeon Master, and do I have any words to share with the masses about this issue?

The computers will get input from carbon-14 results or data from ancient texts--cuneiform, not a Sim City expansion pack.

originally posted by daiichi

"It was a bit odd," said Justin, "my fingers were working the controls, but they were also kind of working you."

Ladies and gentlemen, we've done it. The Buy Bush a PlayStation Campaign has collected $370, enough to send the commander-in-chief a PlayStation 2 with all the trimmings. Thanks again to everyone who made this protest possible with your donations, ideas and support.

Over the next couple of days, I will begin the very serious business of buying the PS2, making the proper arrangements with the White House's office of presidential correspondence so that the Secret Service doesn't tear it apart, and turning the whole thing into a photo essay for your edification and amusement

Oh my god, have you seen the gamebutton arcade?

‘Cantilever olestra’ is a googlewhack with a score of 1,165,500,000 – not too shabby. Have you found any?

When of tired of playing with Diamonds, Spades, Hearts and Clubs try Joints, Leafs, Bongs and Buds.

originally posted by xowie