Common Paradox Tech Blog

Star Trek Online? Iron Man 2 details? Mass Effect alien shagging? A new Sonic in 2D? Oh yes, friends. All this and more!

Why There Hasn’t Been A Truly Great Star Trek Game
My opinion? Because games don’t nail diplomacy in a realistic, dynamic manner.

Want The Heavy Rain Demo Right Now? Here’s How…
Heavy Rain looks like one of the few things that Sony is doing really right.

Project Needlemouse Is… Sonic 4, Episode I
It’s taken a decade and a half, but I just may care about Sonic again.

Sega Offers Reasons Iron Man 2 Won’t Be Dreadful
Oh, the sellout studios ALWAYS say this stuff. (And we so often believe them.)

Star Trek Online: One Million Served
I need a ship name, if anyone has any ideas.

Mario & Sonic’s Relationship Isn’t Quite What It Used To Be
It’s funny because it’s true.

Mass Effect 2 And The Curse Of The Tiny Text
I feel for people with tiny, SD TVs for more reasons than just this one.

So, How Did Mass Effect 2 End For You? SPOILERS
Let’s just say my character was going through a bit of a dry spell.

What’s Happened To Nintendo’s “New Play Control”?
Lame, Nintendo. Lame.

Madden Predicts Saints Win In Super Bowl XLIV
I’m between making chili and pork for my Superbowl celebration. Oh, and there’s football on or something, too.

“Mass Affect” – BioWare’s Upcoming Hipster RPG
I know some people who’ve played this.

Like many of you, many of us are huge Star Trek fans. It not only shaped everyone’s view of technology from a young age, it’s arguably one of the driving forces of technology today. And now you can live it.

Here’s a quick intro to what Star Trek Online is all about. It’s about 30 years after the last Next Generation movie. You play an ensign that gets promoted (like new Kirk) to Captain because every officer above him gets killed. It’s a hell of a way to climb the rankings, but it leads to you being placed in command of your own starship, but still being green enough to require tutelage into how everything works.

You spend half your time controlling a ship and half the time on the ground with an away team.

The space part

This is by far the more satisfying part. Who hasn’t wanted to sit in Picard, Kirk, Scott Bakula or any of the lesser captain’s chairs and order people to fire everything? Who can say that they haven’t wanted to smoothly say “make it so” and have something—besides your wife giving you dirty looks—happen? This is that.

Although the main philosophies of the Star Trek universe revolve around exploration, and peace, and diplomacy, blowing shit up has always been the reward for sitting through Picard’s flute playing. And this is supremely satisfying. Phasers and photon torpedoes fire with the correct sound effects, Klingon cruisers explode with a bass-rattling pppptththhhbbffffooooo, and maneuvering the cruise ship-like vessels feels natural, not clunky.

The ground part

And here is where the developers need more work. The bugs are evident, from the fact that you sometimes materialize on the ground as a starship, or when your away team fails to beam down with you, or when certain mission objectives are gone entirely. The game’s still in open beta, which is why we’re giving our impressions now, so there’s time to get everything in better shape before launch.

On the whole, the ground portion feels like a more Star Trekked version of City of Heroes, which was made by the same developer, Cryptic. It’s tolerable (fun, even), but going on away team missions wasn’t exactly the funnest part of the show. It’s what Picard sent Riker to do while he sipped tea in his ready room.

Next time, on Star Trek..

We’ll go more in depth about how the mission structure works, how leveling up/advancing in rank gets you more access to ships, and how closely the game stays to the established Trek “feel” that everyone is used to. Plus, what pre-order bonuses you should get in on.

If you want more coverage, check out Kotaku’s Star Trek Online page. We’re going to mostly focus on how the game appeals to Star Trek fans, but if you want more info about how the game is as a game, Kotaku’s got you covered.

For all the talk of sexting, you’d think it was the only kind of text out there. Not so! There’s plenty of other ways to message, most of which come with just as much regret:

Becksting: Texting after one too many fine imported lagers

Sectsting: Blasts to give your cult to-the-minute updates on Xenu’s ETA

Flexting: A picture message that doubles as an Admit One to the gun show

Anorexting: Updating your friends on calorie counts and Weight Watchers points

Hexting: Sending bad juju via SMS

T. Rexting: Sending out obscure lyrics from 70s glam-rock bands

Dexting: Sharing your Dexter fan fiction, 160 characters at a time

Treksting: Spending an hour creating the perfect ASCII Vulcan salute

Computers in movies look nothing like the beasts we lug around today. They’re thin and light, a single pane that jumps to life when touched. Technology follows Hollywood dreams; here’s hoping this montage is a portent of what’s coming soon.

The world will be shocked if Apple doesn’t reveal a tablet computer next week. It won’t be the first, not by any stretch, and it won’t be the first multitouch device, naturally. But as we envision it, the tablet represents the fusion of two of the most steadfast dreams of sci-fi nerds and ordinary people alike.

This reel, compiled for Giz by Mike Byhoff and Frank Cozzarelli as a celebration of sci-fi’s longstanding love affair with tablets and touch interfaces, is pretty self explanatory, but there are a few things to think about:

• The greatest literary device in sci-fi history, the actual Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, was, in fact, a tablet.

• Gene Roddenberry was—like some tech analysts these days—in favor of the tablet coming in large and small sizes.

• The Incredibles, created by Steve Jobs’ Pixar, not only has the most Apple-like vision of a tablet, but shows it sliding out of a manila envelope, three years before Steve drew the slender MacBook Air out of the same.

• We’re not sure what Bart Simpson is doing to that iMac either, but apparently “Mapple” beat Apple to the punch with touchscreen all-in-ones.

• It is physically impossible to craft a montage of sci-fi interfaces without showing Tom C. in Minority Report.

• You may say that the tablets of Moses weren’t exactly interactive. Fine, believe what you will, but take our advice and stay the hell away from golden calves.

There are plenty more crazy touch computer sightings in TV and movies—if you can track any down, be sure to post them in comments.

Special thanks to Mike Byhoff and Frank Cozzarelli of Gawker TV for working overtime to pull this reel together. The catchy music—chosen for its sci-fi-friendliness, its nice buildup, and its utter lack of resemblance to 1990s techno—is “Lovely Allen” by Holy Fuck, which you can (and should) buy here at Amazon, or here on iTunes.

The good news: this Star Trek phaser mod has legitimate blow-em-up functionality and pewpew sound. The best news: you can build one of your very own.

The full tutorial can be found at Laser Pointer Forums, a site I’ll obviously be visiting with far more frequency in the future. In the meantime, I’m going to keep watching this video, imagining Romulan sentries in the place of big black balloons. [Laser Pointer Forums, thanks Jay!]

Entrepreneurial magazine Fast Company recently revealed their list of who they are calling the “Geeks of the Year”, (the year being 2009). And on that list is one Jon Rubinstein, who we know around here as the CEO of Palm, Inc. Fast Company’s reasoning behind bestowing such an, uh, honor on Rubinstein? Well, he was more or less responsible for ushering the Palm Pre and webOS to the masses and catapulting Palm back into the public eye. Rubinstein shares the Fast Company Geek of the Year list with the likes of Jens and Lars Rasmussen (the brains behind Google Wave), Star Trek director/producer/reimaginer J.J. Abrams, and Twitter cofounders Evan Williams and Biz Stone.

[via: The MX Web]

I’ve seen Avatar twice now, which is saying something when you’re talking about a nearly three hour movie that was released 36 hours ago. But we lined up on Thursday night for the first midnight showing. And then I saw it again yesterday at the TechCrunch screening in San Francisco.

What do I think? I think I’m going to go see it again this weekend at an IMAX theater. Because the movie is awesome in 3D, but I want to see it in 3D on a 50 ft by 70 ft screen. Movies will never be the same after Avatar. Like the iPhone in the mobile world, this movie disrupts an entire industry.

I didn’t know much about the movie until I read an article about it in Wired on a flight to Europe last week. A movie James Cameron has been working on since 1994, but he had to wait until technology caught up with his dream, and he invented a new kind of camera along the way.

The amazing thing about Avatar isn’t the story – it’s simply a passable tale that’s part Pocahontas, part Dances With Wolves. But it’s a story played by ten foot tall blue people with tails who fly around on miniature dragons and generally kick ass. And suddenly the special effects in every movie you’ve ever seen seem trite in comparison. Jurassic Park type special effects, which seemed so awesome in the 90s, are now laughably dated.

There’s no point in the movie where you can really tell the difference between real imagery and CGI. You become completely lost in the world of Pandora, the setting for Avatar. And if you thought Zoe Saldana was amazing in Star Trek earlier this year, wait until you see Avatar. An entire generation of teenagers are now going to have a lifelong crush on a huge blue woman with a tail named Neytiri.

Here’s a bit of an odd one. We’re all for player vs. player-centric MMOs like Warhammer Online, but what about an MMO that jettisons one faction’s PvE right out the airlock? Because according to developer Cryptic, Star Trek Online’s Klingons won’t be collecting space-rabbit pelts or playing the parts of glorified intergalactic mailmen. Or at least, not when the game first launches.

“Klingon gameplay is almost entirely PvP. We are trying to get some PvE in (there’s already a tad bit). And, if the players demand it, we’ll add more content (like episodes). I want us to be agile as a company and respond to what the customers want,” said chief creative officer Jack Emmert in a forum post.

“I’m most excited about playing a Klingon. I love combat in a bird of prey. Klingons are getting attention – from me. It’s not as much as I’d want, but we have a foundation that we can grow into. If people like the federation gameplay, we can put that in for the Klingons. If players have a different set of requests for Klingons, we can do that instead. We can make STO into the game that YOU want.”

While we’re certainly happy to see that Cryptic wants players to help guide its infinitely capable hands as it molds Star Trek Online, we have to question whether or not the developer’s taking too much advantage of the patching process ingrained in so many MMOs. One could argue that an MMO never “finishes” development in the traditional sense, but with a decent portion of Star Trek Online essentially MIA, we’re wondering if Cryptic has taken things too far?

Obviously, we can’t pass judgment until the space-faring MMO touches down in February, but what do you think? Should a developer be able to get away undercooking a major feature if it promises to make up for it later? Or should we call that developer’s foul and raise a ruckus until someone listens?   

Here’s a bit of an odd one. We’re all for player vs. player-centric MMOs like Warhammer Online, but what about an MMO that jettisons one faction’s PvE right out the airlock? Because according to developer Cryptic, Star Trek Online’s Klingons won’t be collecting space-rabbit pelts or playing the parts of glorified intergalactic mailmen. Or at least, not when the game first launches.

“Klingon gameplay is almost entirely PvP. We are trying to get some PvE in (there’s already a tad bit). And, if the players demand it, we’ll add more content (like episodes). I want us to be agile as a company and respond to what the customers want,” said chief creative officer Jack Emmert in a forum post.

“I’m most excited about playing a Klingon. I love combat in a bird of prey. Klingons are getting attention – from me. It’s not as much as I’d want, but we have a foundation that we can grow into. If people like the federation gameplay, we can put that in for the Klingons. If players have a different set of requests for Klingons, we can do that instead. We can make STO into the game that YOU want.”

While we’re certainly happy to see that Cryptic wants players to help guide its infinitely capable hands as it molds Star Trek Online, we have to question whether or not the developer’s taking too much advantage of the patching process ingrained in so many MMOs. One could argue that an MMO never “finishes” development in the traditional sense, but with a decent portion of Star Trek Online essentially MIA, we’re wondering if Cryptic has taken things too far?

Obviously, we can’t pass judgment until the space-faring MMO touches down in February, but what do you think? Should a developer be able to get away undercooking a major feature if it promises to make up for it later? Or should we call that developer’s foul and raise a ruckus until someone listens?   

If you’re planning on seeing Avatar in theaters this weekend, you are not alone. Both Fandango and MovieTickets.com are reporting that a huge percentage of tickets purchased online have been for the James Cameron-directed sci-fi epic.

How huge is huge? Try 70 percent for MovieTickes.com and 87 percent for Fandango. Furthermore, Fandango says that pre-order sales are eclipsing those of Star Trek — which is impressive, considering Trek had a built-in following based on its previous incarnations.

More interesting Avatar pre-order stats:

75 percent – 89 percent of all ticket sales are for the 3D or IMAX 3D screenings

Hundreds of screenings are sold-out across the U.S., according to both Fandango and MovieTickets.com

68 percent – 78 percent of the ticket buyers are male

37 percent of men surveyed said they will be bringing a date

In November, The Twilight Saga: New Moon dominated online ticket sales and actually broke Fandango’s all-time record. The positive buzz, heavy male audience and increased price of 3D tickets might push Avatar above even that mark.

As a studio, Fox has engaged in various social media campaigns to promote Avatar — including creating an augmented reality trailer, hosting a Facebook live chat with the cast and crew and showing the red carpet premiere via Ustream.

We’ll have to wait for the weekend box office numbers to roll in to see how well that campaign paid off.

Are you planning on seeing Avatar this weekend? Let us know!

Tags: avatar, fandango, movietickets.com, online tickets