Anonymous Writer writes "I learned years ago to backup regularly and never keep a drink on the same table as a laptop. I accidentally spilled a drink onto my laptop's keyboard where it drained into the laptop's innards, ruining the motherboard, CD-ROM, and hard drive. Thousands of dollars and all my data disappeared in a flash. Considering that there are even people out there that intentionally damage hardware, I was wondering what kind of disasters Slashdot readers have experienced."

Thanks to NTSC-UK for its interview with scriptwriter Paul Rose regarding Zed Two's tactical RPG Future Tactics, as he discusses some of the issues with current game scriptwriting ("You may think there's nothing wrong with them, but to someone like myself who makes a living out of writing scripts and stories, they set my teeth on edge. Especially when you get developers, or publishers, going on about their Hollywood-style scripts"), as well as the sad demise of Zed Two (then a part of Warthog) just before the game's release ("A big, big shame, given that Zed Two's ethos was to produce genuinely innovative and interesting games.") Elsewhere, Gamecritics.com has a thoughtful review of the PS2/Xbox/GC game, "saddled with poor cover art and positioned as a budget release", but considered "a breath of fresh air" by the reviewer, though NTSC-UK's review is a little more ambivalent, arguing: "It can only be hoped that [the developers'] inventiveness is met with the time and budget to do their creativity justice [in the future]."

xyankee writes "In an effort to curtail the piracy and bootlegging of DVD screeners, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has endorsed a plan to distribute about 6,000 special DVD players to members that will play specially encrypted screener discs that would be earmarked for a specific academy voter and would play only on that person's machine. The Associated Press has the full story, while Laurence Roth, VP and co-founder of Cinea, Inc., the company behind the technology, says 'the discs, by themselves, cannot be hacked.'"

aanand writes "Kevin Bacchus, Infinium's PR man and the brains behind the launch of the Xbox, has given a revealing interview with State in which he attempts to lay to rest once and for all the doubts about the Phantom's viability and, indeed, existence. The man himself: 'I built a game console. I know what it takes to do that. It wasn't until I met with the founders of the company as they were interested with bringing me on board that I realised that it was a lot less audacious than it seems on the surface.'" Infinium has also recently announced that they "will be shipping Java technology on its Phantom game receiver when it launches this fall", but with Xbox Live Arcade seeming to duplicate at least some of Phantom's "advanced gaming on demand system" functionality, and muck-raking sites such as 'Where Is Phantom?', billed as "The site for all [Infinium] Critics, Cynics, Detractors and Doubters", nipping at its heels, the company may have its PR work cut out for it.

Thanks to CJ Johnston's weblog for its discussion on the true identity of U.S. videogame magazine EGM's secretive early/mid-'90s writer, Sushi-X. Johnston, a former EGM staffer, muses on the origins of the character: "The way I figure it (and I'm guessing here, since he appeared in EGM before my [1994-era] time), the Sushi-X persona was inspired by [Japanese videogame magazine] Famitsu's Taco-X, a reviewer often dressed as a ninja", and goes on to claim that the Lloyd Mangram-esque Sushi-X, "often the 'swing reviewer' who would pan something the other guys 'liked'", was originally writer Ken Williams. However, "soon everyone else on staff was taking turns playing Sushi-X", and, even post-EGM removal, the often composite character was resurrected for the now defunct GameNow magazine in 2003.

Thanks to Insert Credit for its feature discussing making real-life 'pixelbead' sculptures out of classic 2D videogame sprites, strictly for fun. The author explains the "process of recreating a sprite or any other form of pixel-art with beads" by using a pegboard, noting: "Do keep in mind that recreating pixel-art this way gets the best results on low-color art. 4 to 8 color characters (NES quality) generally look a lot better than the mess 16-bit (Snes, GBA, MD/Genesis etc.) characters often are", also explaining you'll need to "make your beads melt and fuse" with an iron and ironing paper to get to the finished result. The piece shows '3D' Metroids and a large variety of Mega Man characters as examples of this arts-and-crafts incursion into videogaming - elsewhere, the more expensive but more malleable PixelBlocks have also been used to "make your own 2D and 3D pixel art objects."

The Importance of writes "MediaPost reports that, for the first time since it has been tracked, the average number of receivable television channels per household has stopped increasing and even decreased a bit. Perhaps we're not going to hit that 500 channel future people used to talk about. TV executives are, of course, worried about this and want answers. Is this just a temporary plateau or the beginning of a long-term trend? Will DVRs reverse this slide or are they part of the problem? Are we heading into a channel-free future or do channels still have value?"

Thanks to MMORPGDot for a report on the recent City Of Heroes MMO seminar at the Origins gaming convention in Ohio. The piece, arriving just after a useful overview-styled review, also on MMORPGDot, includes comments from lead designer Jack Emmert on the game's success (he was "surprised about the popularity of the game. He sees the popularity as a result of the accessibility of the game design and not necessarily the genre of the game"), and subscription numbers ("They're almost at 200,000 players. There will be an announcement when they make it"), as well as general info on the City Of Villains expansion: "Bases will play a big role for both Heroes and Villains. Supergroups will be able to fortify secret lairs with many cool and interesting toys. These include automated defenses and NPC assistants. Villains and Heroes will have henchmen, and these goons will be fully customizable. PvP will have a lot to do with bases and base invasions (think keep sieges). Groups and individuals that don't want to engage in PvP will never have to."

Thanks to FirstCoastNews/AP for its article discussing the videogame reward for a Florida child who impaled himself on an ornamental elephant tusk while impersonating Spider-Man. Apparently, after viewing the movie and "playing at his grandmother's home, imitating some of the super hero's moves... the boy lost his balance... and then hit the heavy mahogany elephant.. and half the elephant's large ivory tusk broke off and got stuck in his body." Post-accident, the boy's mother explained "she was proud of her son keeping his composure during the ordeal... [and] he'll be rewarded with a Spider-Man 2 video game [as recently covered on Slashdot Games]", saying "That was his motivation through it all... I'm like, whatever it takes." Feel free to suggest other hospitalization-related acts that could be performed to receive a similarly-themed videogame.

jagripino writes "Brazilian SEGA licensee Tec Toy has announced a new edition of the Sega Master System hardware, the Master System Handy (Google Translation), another one in their series of portable SMS, following the SMS Compact and the pink SMS Girl. The system sports a new design, resembling a Dreamcast controller, comes with 27 built-in games and Composite Video Out (the previous compact systems had RF output only). No details yet on whether or not it has a cartridge port. Note to would-be importers: the system runs in PAL-M, it will work on NTSC TV sets in black & white. It's probably a trivial mod to make its output pure NTSC, but I won't know until I can get my hands on one." Definitely interesting to note that TecToy is a legitimate Sega licensee, unlike most third-party console hardware.

Matt writes "It seems Nintendo President Satoru Iwata has once again spoken out, in a talk to the Japan Economic Foundation, and GameCube Advanced has the highlights. Iwata downplays online gaming, citing the example of a PS2 golf sim which outsold its online counterpart [is this Minna No Golf Online, aka Hot Shots Golf Fore!, versus its prequel?] Also, Iwata speaks about Nintendo working with other non-Japanese companies (saying 'We are now holding negotiations with major Western game developers and will be able to conclude a deal by the end of the year if things go smoothly'), and about takeover speculation regarding Bandai [vague talk of 'a closer relationship'.] In addition, he warned again that the status quo in videogames is in jeopardy... 'We are facing a critical situation, in which the number of game players will decrease unless we change tack', Iwata said."

SlartibartfastJunior writes "I will be sending my four-year-old laptop to a school in Uganda this fall. I plan to load up an older version of Windows (or something free), and I need suggestions - what should I load on it? I need suggestions for educational games, educational software, etc. that won't drain my battery too much (since the computer will only be able to recharge at night), won't require a CD (since my drive doesn't work 80% of the time), and won't be too America-centered (most of these children have never been more than ten miles out of their own villages, and wouldn't understand "Oregon Trail"). Also, any great ideas on where I can acquire copies of this software?"

Thanks to Yahoo!/Reuters for its story revealing videogame publisher Acclaim Entertainment has announced a quarterly loss of $25.4 million, and warned of possible bankruptcy, since "needs new cash to replace a financing agreement... that expires on Aug. 4." Apparently the company "has signed a letter of intent with a different lender to borrow up to $30 million but the deal has not yet been completed." The long-standing publisher has also recently been sued by the Olsen Twins, although it still lists upcoming titles as including 100 Bullets, The Red Star, Worms Forts: Under Siege!, and Interview With A Made Man. Update: 07/03 01:34 GMT by S : Acclaim's 10-K financial statement reveals "notification from The Major League Baseball Player's Association (MLBPA) that we were late in making certain royalty payments and our license was terminated", and "due to failure to make certain royalty payments relating to the videogame title Turok: Evolution... our [Turok intellectual property] license agreement with Classic Media was terminated."

scsiiscs writes "I have just had the pleasure of reading Lysergically Yours, the first offering from author Frank Duff. As the chemically aware among you may have guessed from the title, this is a novel which deals in part with the synthesis of and culture surrounding LSD. It is much more than just a drug book though, and what's better, it has been released under a Creative Commons license. " Read on for the rest of his review.

An anonymous reader writes "Anandtech has posted a detailed article on good-looking PC FPS Farcry's forthcoming 1.2 patch which takes advantage of Nvidia's Shader Model 3.0 engine. The patch is supposed to boost Farcry performance for all video cards, but with Nvidia [supposedly] getting the biggest boost from SM3. (Further details on Nvidia's SM3 engine can be found via HardOCP) Benchmarks are included in the Anandtech article." The article also notes: "ATI assures us that they have also been working with CryTek on their efforts. Since we have seen a performance improvement with the latest driver and new 1.2 patch, we don't have any reason to think that anything extraordinarily fishy is going on behind the scenes between NVIDIA and CryTek."

albino eatpod writes "The BBC are reporting that despite 'the very best deal possible,' a failure to agree terms between the BBC and the estate of late sci-fi writer Terry Nation has meant that we will not being seeing TV's most evil villains in the new series, starring Christopher Eccleston and Billy Piper."

Thanks to Redkeyreddoor for its interview with former Ocean videogame cover artist Bob Wakelin, known for his airbrushed game covers for classic '80s UK titles including The Great Escape and Head Over Heels. Wakelin explains the creative process: "I'd go over to [Ocean's] offices and down into their basement, where one of their 'slaves', as I called them, would show me the games. At that stage they were just bits and pieces of code, full of bugs. They'd show me 20 pixels that were supposed to represent a mighty warrior", before concluding by noting of the Wizball cover art: "I think I was very stoned when I did it."

Thanks to Gamesindustry.biz for its article regarding predictions of a tough 2004 holiday season for all videogame publishers, as an analyst report from Banc of America Securities claims "competition in the games market will be much more intense than last year", and argues that "some games will just not receive any shelf space from retailers, and initial shipments of titles will be very low, even by historical standards." The report goes on to highlight some non-specific specifics: "We have very low expectations for games of other developers with less-known brands... including Acclaim, Midway (except Mortal Kombat), Atari, Eidos, Vivendi (apart from Half-Life 2, if it is released) and even Microsoft (apart from Halo 2)... Expect many disasters this holiday." Is there really a reason for game creators to worry about what sales Santa will bring them?

Thanks to Tokyopia for pointing out the Japanese debut of a novel based on cult PlayStation 2 title ICO, as created by "Japan noir" author Miyuki Miyabe. There's discussion of the book's contents over on GameFAQs, with a reader explaining the plot as involving "the village Ico comes from, their rituals and beliefs, and the birth of Ico... [and then includes] the game part... then an epilogue about what happens to the two [after the game]", and noting "It sounds like [Miyabe] asked for permission to write the novel", as opposed to vice versa. The discussion also warns the book shouldn't be confused with an Italian-language non-fiction analysis of ICO from Ben Mottershead, due out in September.

Thanks to GameSpot for its 'Spot On' feature discussing some of the problems inherent in today's MMORPG property-owning systems. It references a paper [PDF link] written by original MUD co-creator Richard Bartle, which "addresses some of the trickier, if not darker, sides of virtual-property ownership." The basic premise of the argument is that "increase in commodification, gamers and the industry... are fast moving toward a breaking point that will likely involve the real-world legal system to sort out the conflicts", citing recent Chinese lawsuits about the loss of virtual items. Bartle concludes, gloomily: "Professors at Yale and Harvard looking into cyber-law, as they call it, are prepared. Unfortunately, they aren't the people who will be approached. The people who will be approached will be the judge... someplace that's never heard of virtual worlds. Working with the unknown, while perhaps exciting for those who enjoy gambling, is nevertheless on the whole bad for business."