Star Trek multiplayer game: Which version would be best?

Star Trek is coming to the world of massively multiplayer online role-playing games. By most accounts for fans of the science fiction series and gaming, this is exciting news.

But the real question for Trekkies is sure to be: Which Star Trek?

First the news: At a Star Trek convention in Las Vegas over the weekend, Cryptic Studios revealed the first details and a trailer for Star Trek Online, an MMORPG based on the franchise. Leonard Nimoy was even onstage to unveil the game (a company spokeswoman said they're not saying what the price or release date will be quite yet).

I asked the spokeswoman which Star Trek the game will be based on and she said cryptically that Cryptic is "definitely looking at the movies and TV shows as canon but also looking to comics and novels for additional ideas". Unfortunately, I didn't see the trailer, but the screen shots Cryptic sent me look an awful lot like a Star Trek: The Next Generation fight with one of those smaller, circular Borg ships. I assume the new game will create its own Star Trek universe, inspired by everything from the original series to all of the movies.
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Extreme gamers padding video game industry's bottom line

The video game industry had better thank its lucky stars that hardcore gamers do what they do.

According to a report issued Monday morning by industry analyst firm, The NPD Group, the most active group of players, which it termed "extreme gamers", devote more than a full-time job's work week to their avocation. But they don't get insurance benefits for their efforts.

Rather, NPD's "Games Segmentation 2008" report explained that extreme gamers put in an average of 45 hours a week playing games, and, even better--for the video game industry's coffers--bought a whopping 24 titles in the last three months.

True, these committed gamers make up just 3 percent of the 174 million that NPD said play on PCs or Macs or dedicated video game machines. Still, that means 5.22 million people out there are putting in serious amounts of time gaming away. And if you stop and think about the dollars they're spending, if they're buying 24 games every three months, it's kind of breathtaking.

The NPD report identified seven different segments of gamers, including our extreme friends. The others include 9 percent who are "avid PC gamers", 17 percent who are console gamers, 14 percent who are online PC gamers, 15 percent who are offline PC gamers, 22 percent who are "young heavy gamers", and 20 percent who are "secondary" gamers.
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Go ahead, cover your keyboard in syrup

In the spirit of breathing new life into old gadgets, as well as creating the nerdiest breakfast tool ever, designer Chris Dimino managed to make a typewriter into a waffle maker.

The Corona-Matic Waffle maker (which is currently only a prototype) not only produces an extremely large, rectangular, and potentially delicious waffle. Since it's made from an old Corona typewriter, it imprints a keyboard shape into your breakfast food.

The product was spurred by a challenge from Dimino's art school, the School of Visual Arts in New York, to take a "useless product" and make it functional again.

It's hard to say if this item will ever become commercialized (how many Smith Corona-Matic typewriters are floating around?) but it's a bit more appetizing than one of Dimino's other typewriter-inspired inventions--the Ashes to Ashes urn.

Via CNET Crave

Spore, the movie?

After several years of waiting, video game fans will soon be able to get their hands on the long-awaited new title from legendary designer Will Wright, Spore.

But if the game's publisher, Electronic Arts, has its way, a much wider audience of fans may someday be exposed to the game. Or at least a version of the game.

That's because, according to a Reuters report Wednesday, EA is hoping that it may one day be able to license the film and/or TV rights to Spore.

Speaking to Reuters in Singapore, where he is in the middle of an ambitious publicity tour prior to the game's September 7 release, Wright addressed the issue of EA's long-term goals for its newest major franchise.
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AMD reclaims the high-end 3D card belt

The reviews are in for AMD's new high-end 3D card--the embargoed, but not exactly secret 2GB Radeon HD 4870 X2--and the official results are as enthusiastic as the previews. By all accounts, the US$550 Radeon HD 4870 X2 is the fastest desktop 3D board on the market, outpacing Nvidia's flagship GeForce GTX 280 card on most tests.

According to the results on PC Perspective, Hot Hardware, ExtremeTech, and Anandtech, AMD's new card comes up faster than both a single US$450 GeForce GTX 280 as well as two US$250 GeForce GTX 260's. Nvidia may steal a win here and there depending on the settings, such as on Crysis, but at higher resolutions and with more image quality details turned on, the AMD card and its 2GB of fast DDR5 memory the Radeon HD 4870 X2 fares better overall.

You won't really see a benefit from the 4870 X2 unless you play games at 1,920 x 1,200-pixel resolution or higher. That means unless you own a 24-inch or better LCD, you should probably stick to lower-end cards, at least for the moment. You can also double-up AMD's new card in CrossFire mode (AMD's multicard technology, and competitor to Nvidia's SLI), but that would be hard to justify on anything less than a 30-inch display.
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