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Machinarium is a stunningly beautiful game with hand-drawn characters and backgrounds that are packed with detail and personality. Better yet, it’s an adventure game in the old point-and-click style – no shooting, no running, no reflexes! The game has no dialog, so puzzles are solved the old-fashioned way, by hunting for hot spots and picking up items and trying to figure out a sequence that makes some kind of sense. If you can recover the dog trapped across the water and give it to the woman calling for it, she’ll give you her umbrella, which you can use […] continued

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Sometimes it seems impossible to find a a couple of hours that can be spent away from the real world. People over 25 might find time for a good book but computer gaming belongs to the young – almost any good computer game requires at least a few hours to learn the controls and become familiar with the setup, and the best of them can easily hold your interest for anywhere from 20-60 hours. (Not to mention that most of the shooting games are so fast and require such twitchy reflexes that I couldn’t have played them even when I […] continued

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There will be time next year for news about technology that affects your business. Let’s focus on something more important.

On Xmas day, a new Wallace and Gromit short film, “A Matter Of Loaf And Death,” was broadcast on British television! This is exciting news for anyone who enjoyed A Grand Day Out, A Close Shave, The Wrong Trousers, and The Curse Of The Were-Rabbit. Everyone likes Wallace and Gromit! The new film is just as wonderful as the rest. It will eventually be released in the US, although anyone familiar with Bittorrent can find a […] continued

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By the close of the 2008 Olympic Games, NBC will have broadcast 2,900 hours of live coverage – more than the total number of US television hours for all previous summer Olympic Games combined.

In addition to the broadcasts on the primary NBC channel, video coverage will be virtually nonstop on NBC’s Spanish-language outlet, Telemundo, and on five of seven major NBC Universal-owned cable channels. Huge amounts of video covering every sport will be served up by streamed video on NBC’s Olympics Web site, NBCOlympics.com. Here’s a good article about the monolithic coverage and the accompanying promotional effort. […] continued

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If you are young or young at heart, and have the luxury of free time, it’s worth noting the release tomorrow for the PC, XBox 360, and PS3 of Grand Theft Auto IV, latest installment in an increasingly important franchise. Early reviews are flowing in and GTA IV seems on its way to becoming the best-reviewed game in history – currently standing at 99% at metacritic.com.

If you’re too old to be playing a violent game in a seedy underworld, don’t overlook Sam & Max, a big floppy dog with a fedora and a hyperkinetic […] continued

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Halo 3 will be released for the XBox 360 on Tuesday. I know, you don’t play games, but this is one of those cultural events that are worth knowing about to keep from feeling old and out of touch.

It’s likely that the sales during the first 24 hours will be $155 million or more – allowing Microsoft to brag that it is the largest entertainment launch in history. That’s more money than any movie or book has ever brought in – bigger than Spiderman 3, bigger than Harry Potter. Here’s the kind of news item you’re likely to […] continued

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I mentioned a few days ago that the latest version of Google Earth includes “Google Sky,” adding the ability to zoom through the universe viewing high-resolution photos of stars and galaxies.

Many features have been added in the last couple of years for displaying photos, Wikipedia entries, 3D skylines, and more. Here’s two that are new to me.

This site has a long discussion of how to download high-resolution 3D images of structures around the world, created by real people and uploaded to Google’s servers. The article focuses on buildings in Disneyland contributed by adoring fans, but […] continued

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Second Life looked like it was poised to be the Next Big Thing when the media gave it blanket coverage a few months ago. (I got caught up in the hype and wrote a description of it that was way too enthusiastic. I’m sorry.) It’s still growing and making its presence felt, but its growth numbers turned out to be exaggerated and many people have been discouraged by the difficulty of getting started and unimpressed by the experience of wandering the virtual world.

Here’s a wonderful description of one person’s first excursion into the world of Second Life. […] continued

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Productivity is overrated. Close the e-mail program, shove those piles of paper aside, there’s more important things to do: Sam & Max are back in a new game, their first appearance on computer screens since the late, lamented Sam & Max Hit The Road in 1993. Here’s the web site for Sam & Max Episode 1: Culture Shock.

Young gamers have no knowledge of the adventure game genre – pointing and clicking and solving puzzles, frequently while laughing out loud. Computer gaming began with adventure games, starting with Colossal Cave, progressing through Activision’s Zork and other text adventures, through […] continued

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Make no mistake: MySpace is old news, YouTube is beginning its slide out of the headlines, Yahoo is over the hill, Flickr never stood a chance. Second Life is the hot online destination, the next cultural obsession, soon to be a household name.

Second Life is an online world; the visuals will remind you of online games, but there’s no gameplay, just an enormous open-ended space designed for endless exploration and creativity. I can’t describe it in a few words; visit the Second Life web site, read this article about its background and features, and look through […] continued

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